Transformation through trauma healing
We believe every survivor of gender-based violence deserves more than survival — they deserve genuine transformation. Common Threads Project runs trauma-processing healing circles that guide survivors through the full arc: from safety and stabilization, to story, to lasting recovery.
Our model is not symptom management. It is deep trauma processing that is clinically guided, community-held, and proven to produce statistically significant reductions in depression and trauma symptoms. We work through somatic regulation, psychoeducation, and the ancient, embodied practice of slow stitching and story cloths. The stitching is not incidental to the therapy. It is the therapy.
We partner with local organizations on five continents, training clinicians who train others and building a facilitator network that carries healing far beyond what any single organization can deliver directly.
Nearly 840 million people worldwide — 1 in 3 women — have experienced gender-based violence. The consequences reach far beyond individuals: into families, communities, and across generations. Common Threads Project was built on the conviction that a crisis of this scale demands a different answer: not one organization reaching everyone, but a trained network. A methodology that works — embedded in communities around the world, carried forward by healers who learned from healers. Watch this film to learn more.
Have you seen our virtual exhibition? It brings together 22 story cloths made by women from Bosnia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ecuador and Nepal as part of a recovery program designed for survivors of sexual violence, trauma, and displacement in conflict-affected areas. The exhibit invites us to bear witness; to be a part of the healing process of the survivors by hearing their stories, acknowledging their pain, and affirming their hopes.
Every stitch tells a story. Every story holds a life. At Common Threads Project, we transform lives through trauma processing — weaving evidence-based therapeutic practice into the ancient art of the story cloth, so survivors feel heard, held, and empowered to heal.
Our 2025 Community Impact Report documents the journeys of hundreds of survivors who participated in Common Threads healing circles across seven program sites — and the more than 100 clinicians now trained to carry this work forward into communities that need it most.
Read the report and witness what healing in community makes possible.
To serve women who fled to Nepal as refugees from Pakistan, Iraq and Bhutan, we launched Common Threads Nepal in 2014.
In 2024, we partnered with three agencies in the DC, Maryland, Virginia region.
In 2024, we partnered with Neem Foundation to bring Common Threads Project’s trauma healing approach to survivors in Nigeria.
Supporting groups of refugee women, survivors of gender-based violence, and members of marginalized communities in partnership with the Bellevue Program for Survivors of Torture and City College’s Psychological Center.
Supporting refugees who have escaped war, poverty, political violence, and human rights abuses.
Working alongside Ukrainian partners to build a foundation for long-term trauma recovery—training local clinicians, strengthening systems of care, and preparing communities to support survivors over time.
