Voices Across Waters is a living chain of conversations among ecofeminist activists from across the Mediterranean: Svetlana Balovska Đurković, Mariona Bonsfills Clotet, Noe Diaferia, Asmaa Elmalky, Simona Getova, Jasmina Husanović, Lena Penšek, Roula Seghaier, and Shereen Talaat. Through intimate and courageous dialogue, the series amplifies voices, stories, and political imagination rooted in care, solidarity, resistance, and transformation.

Across borders and struggles, each episode explores how ecofeminism challenges patriarchal, colonial, capitalist and extractivist systems while nurturing collective alternatives grounded in justice, dignity and ecological balance. 

These are not just interviews. They are acts of alliance building towards collective liberation. They are conversations between commerades, between friends. They are hope.

In this deeply personal episode, Noe speaks with Simona about feminist awakening, collective grief, and the revolutionary power of relationships.

Noe shares how the public naming of femicide as systemic patriarchal violence in Italy became a turning point in her activism, leading to the creation of a grassroots feminist movement. Together, they reflect on grief ceremonies as collective healing practices and on how community-building directly challenges capitalist individualism.

Drawing on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s idea of “the danger of a single story,” they explore why storytelling is central to ecofeminist struggle — and how breaking dominant narratives opens space for dignity, complexity, and solidarity across the Mediterranean.

Noe Diaferia (interviewee) is a transfeminist activist from Southern Italy. They are active in the nonviolent civil resistance movement Bruciamo Tutto (Let’s Burn Everything) advocating for radical systemic change and social justice.

Simona Getova (interviewer) is an intersectional decolonial feminist organizer, facilitator, and educator from Macedonia, currently based in Barcelona. Simona is the head of operations at Research & Degrowth International and a researcher at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at UPF.

This podcast series is part of the Ecofeminism in the Mediterranean initiative and was developed as a chain-interview format designed to create relational dialogue across territories, experiences, and struggles.

An initiative by Research & Degrowth International: Research & Degrowth is an academic association dedicated to advancing research, training, and collective reflection on degrowth, ecological justice, and post-growth transformations. Through interdisciplinary collaboration, it supports critical thinking and collective action toward socially just and ecologically viable futures. Project coordination and leadership by Lena Penšek, activist and communicator of the Ecofeminism in the Mediterranean project, with visual identity and artwork by Alexandra Mestre Garcia. Find out more at https://degrowth.org/ 

Design and production by Efecto Colibrí: Efecto Colibrí helps create narratives that advance a just, diverse, and regenerative reality. It drives systemic change by transforming the stories that quietly shape our worlds. Through narrative research, co-design of systemic-change narratives, and story activation, Efecto Colibrí builds understanding, moves conversations forward, and equips teams to create change through narrative clarity in times of noise and polarization. Creative design by Ana Amrein, founder of Efecto Colibrí, together with Gonzalo Díaz, architect and editor. Find out more at: https://efectocolibri.com/en/ 

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