This week I’d like to introduce you to a remarkable organization called the Common Threads Project. It is an international group that exists to help those who have suffered the trauma of sexual and gender-based violence, so they can heal through the power of stitch. It began as a Swiss NGO, then moved to New York as a US-based non-profit.
Groups of women who have experienced this trauma, go through a 6-month treatment process, taking that which is unspeakable and putting it into a story cloth, in the safety of a therapeutic sewing circle. Their current exhibit includes work from healing stitch groups in Ecuador, Nepal, and Congo…often serving refugees who suffered in Colombia, Bhutan, and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
In one of my past decades, I counseled women who suffered sexual and physical abuse, and ran a support group for these women. I heard stories of trauma that are difficult to comprehend as a human being. This is why I am always looking for an element of healing in the recipients of our eQuilter charity program. I know it is those who are most hidden, who often need the most help. Some of you know what I mean, I am sure.
In my travels to 49 countries, over the last 45 years, I have visited slums in 4 continents. I have walked into single-room dirt-floor ‘homes’ with no running water or electricity. I have visited with mothers who have no access to healthcare for their families. I mean, zero access. I have met children who sleep on a slab of cardboard at night. In the years that I visited 400 factories in 12 countries, I rejected production facilities that you might call sweat shops. Where possible, I advocated for workers who had no voice, and whose place of employment was also polluting their community water source with toxins that made their families sick.
Arriving in Sri Lanka the week the civil war started, I met women making $1 a day (in the 80s) who came to me with tears in their eyes, palms pressed together in “Namaste”, to thank me for bringing business to their factory so they had a way to work and feed their children. I’ve held the hands of a Navajo grandmother who tearfully asked me to share the story of the abducted young women and children from their reservations. I know people who rescue children who have been sex trafficked. These stories are in the news, but you really have to look for them, and you may think they can’t possibly be true. They are.
Some of the narratives that are stitched into the Common Threads story cloth pieces are difficult to look at. They look like folk art at first glance, but the stories that are shared are profound and emotional. This story cloth above however, tells the story of community support of the healing process.
The Arpillera Group
Ecuador, 2015
The artist statement:
“The other women are my sisters. With them, I cried and I laughed. I learned to value many things; above all, to value myself. The sincerity of each filled me and motivated me. It is important that somebody hears you.”
I invite you to visit the Common Threads Project and perhaps see how you too can support the work of this therapeutic project. eQuilter has committed to an annual grant for Common Threads, and we thank you for your support of our business and our charity program, which has raised over $1.75 million for a variety of non-profits.
Together, we CAN make a difference.
with gratitude for our stitching tribe…
Luana and Paul
* the Story Cloth above is framed by prints currently in stock at eQuilter.com
