Grantees
and Partners

Common Threads Project

Overview:

Founded in Geneva, Switzerland, and now based in New York City, Common Threads Project helps women heal from the enduring psychological effects of sexual and gender-based violence in the context of war and displacement through their arts-based methodology. The program provides a secure space for deep healing and connection with others. Participants learn to access their own strengths and resilience. Using an integrative method where art is a medium to access nonverbal experience, CTP allows for healing the wounds of trauma that persist in domains beyond words.

The program takes its inspiration from an ancient arts practice found in many diverse contexts of women coming together to sew their unspeakable stories into images in cloth. Through this process, participants find safety, mutual support, community, and a vital means of self-expression.

Since the dawn of time, women have been exposed to and traumatized by gender-based violence, war and disruption. The current worldwide refugee crisis has been especially traumatic for women, and there are few therapeutic programs available to help them address this trauma as they forge new lives. The impact of these traumatic experiences on individuals, families and communities is profound and lasting. Often survivors struggle with severe depression, stigma, social isolation, family conflict, shame, and distress. Without an opportunity for true recovery, trauma gets passed on to the next generation.

Grant:

Purpose: To support the creation of Common Threads New York, the first U.S. program for the organization.

Common Threads Project has typically worked internationally, adapting and implementing their program in Nepal, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ecuador, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. With the Illumination Fund’s support, Common Threads Project created two groups of refugee women and survivors of Sexual and Gender Based Violence in partnership with Sanctuary for Families and the Bellevue Program for Survivors of Torture, using the intrinsically healing properties of creating story-cloths in a sewing circle with other survivors. Participants can also show work in exhibitions that raise awareness of Sexual and Gender Based Violence.

Impact:

In 2022-2023, Common Threads Project continued to seed its New York program in collaboration with experienced local partners, including the Program for Survivors of Torture at Bellevue Hospital and Sanctuary for Families. Common Threads Project trained, mentored, and supervised facilitators at both organizations in their healing circle methodology. Common Threads Project also organized its first NYC-based exhibition, Stitch by Stitch: The Fabric of Healing. On view at the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund Gallery, Stitch by Stich brought together story cloths from Ecuador, Nepal, Democratic Republic of Congo, Bosnia, and the United States.