Finding Hope

No matter what has happened in her past, Alba* knows she will rise again, like a phoenix. 

In 2023, Alba migrated with her family to Ecuador due to threats and safety issues in her home country of Colombia. Once there, she sought help from the Federación de Mujeres de Sucumbíos — a network of over 100 grassroot groups that respond to gender injustice in the province. There, she joined a Common Threads Project healing circle, where alongside other migrant women she formed community, learned coping strategies, and was able to address the trauma from her past.

Each week the group met at FMS’s center. The circle facilitators led them in activities involving sewing, psychoeducation, therapeutic art, somatic work, and trauma processing. Like many women before them, they gathered to express their trauma stories through the cloths they sewed.

In her arpillera (story cloth), Alba chose to depict a phoenix, representing her hope for new beginnings. Despite needing to leave her country and resettle elsewhere with her family, she maintained this hope for her future.

*Pseudonym used to protect anonymity