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Wednesday, June 27, 2018 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Quilts for Empowerment coming to Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show
Correspondent
bags, and “story quilts” of
various sizes.
“The women are creating
quilts from simply what they
know, their life around them,”
McCammon said.
After subsequent trips to
work with the women and
refine their craft, McCammon
established the nonprofit
organization “Quilts for
Empowerment” in 2017.
“I just couldn’t give up
on these women. I wanted
these women to have stable
incomes and to be able to put
their children in school,” she
said. “They craft the quilts
and I bring them back and
sell them here and give them
a flat rate for each product.”
McCammon returned once
again in April 2017 to intro-
duce the idea of making large
art quilts incorporating new
embroidery stitches, appli-
que, and more motifs.
“The women embraced
the idea and began filling
large black pieces of fabric
with their unique embroi-
dered motifs.”
Nora Otondo, a fistula
survivor, is now the program
director for QFE in Kenya.
“She’s a great quilter, has
her master’s in counseling
and can handle the phycoso-
cial problems the women are
having,” McCammon said.
“We are partnering with
Women and Development
Against Distress in Africa
(WADADIA) to teach quilt-
ing to women in their fistula
support groups, and Norah is
teaching them.”
QFE has grown and is now
of Friends
e
l
A
c
rt
Mary Ann McCammon,
a registered nurse, combined
her passion for quilting and
women’s health by launch-
ing Quilts for Empowerment
(QFE), teaching quilting to
obstetric fistula survivors in
Kenya, Africa.
Obstetric fistula (OF) are
debilitating complications of
obstructed labor during child-
birth, which results in uncon-
trollable leakage through the
bladder or kidneys, leading
to devastating and dehuman-
izing medical conditions for
the affected women.
The program’s goal is to
help women who have had
surgical repair of their fistulas
reestablish themselves back
into their community with the
skills and self-confidence to
be economically independent.
McCammon’s ambition in
life was to become a nurse.
She received her Bachelor
of Science in nursing from
the University of Missouri,
then a PhD in nursing from
the University of California
in 1979. She was a professor
of nursing at Oregon Health
& Science University where
her clinical practice and
research program focused on
improving the health of mar-
ginalized women: homeless
women, women with disabili-
ties, abused women and low-
income pregnant women.
When she wasn’t focused
on her nursing career, she
quilted.
“In the late 1980s, when
I began quilting, I made tra-
ditional quilts for beds and
babies,” McCammon said. “I
was an absolute purist at first
and I hand-pieced and hand-
quilted everything.”
Many of McCammon’s art
quilts focus on obstetric fis-
tula and have been juried into
local, regional, and national
shows.
After taking a hiatus
from quilting to continue her
hectic nursing schedule,
McCammon resumed her
hobby in 2000 when she
retired and has taught tradi-
tional quilting to the women
incarcerated at a correc-
tional facility in Wilsonville,
Oregon.
“But, when I learned about
obstetric fistula in Kenya, I
recognized this was a mar-
ginalized group of women I
wanted to help,” McCammon
told The Nugget. “My initial
thought was to volunteer as a
nurse but knew that would be
short-term.”
So, in 2015 she donated
her fistula art quilts to the
Fistula Foundation in San
Jose. The foundation then
facilitated her first trip to
Kenya to teach quilting.
When McCammon arrived
in Eldoret, Kenya at the
Gynocare Fistula Center with
a bag full of quilting notions
and embroidery floss, she
learned quickly that none of
the women had ever hand-
sewn, drawn a picture — or
with few exceptions, could
use a treadle seeing machine.
But over the next four
weeks the class size grew
from three to nearly a dozen.
McCammon said, “My
hope was to teach obstetric
fistula survivors how to make
quilts that would provide
them with the skills and self-
confidence to achieve eco-
nomic independence.”
First, the women learned
to hand-stitch around motifs.
Then they made simple land-
scape quilts. Finally, they
learned simple embroidery
stitches to tell their “sto-
ries” through stitched images
that they drew out on paper
first. These early quilts laid
the groundwork for their art
quilts.
Over the next two years,
McCammon taught the sur-
vivors to hand-stitch with
embroidery floss, which
included table-mat sets, tote
Cir
By Jodi Schneider McNamee
PHOTO PROVIDED
Mary Ann McCammon, left, is assisting women in Kenya through quilting.
forming a community-based
organization in Kenya: Kenya
Quilts for Empowerment.
McCammon will be the U.S.
representative to their board.
McCammon will be at
Wildflower Studio during
quilt week and is available to
meet folks and talk about the
program in Kenya.
A QFE board member,
Deb Sorem, will also be
available to meet with people
during the week.
Owner of Wildflower
Studio, artist Chris Nelson,
who is known for her paint-
ings of landscapes and song-
birds, remembers meeting
Deb Sorem at Sisters Library
during her art show.
“I met Deb when she
bought one of my paint-
ings,” Sorem said. “She told
me about Mary Ann and her
work with fistula survivors.
We were looking for some-
body to represent for the quilt
show and that cause drew us
in, and we are honored to rep-
resent them.”
QFE will have all their
products for sale, includ-
ing three types of art quilts
for sale: the “Raw Tops,”
which are black art quilts
without borders so that buy-
ers can frame as they choose.
And there will also be quilts
that have been framed by
Wildflower Studio.
“Deb is an amazing fiber
artist and has been framing
many of our quilts in prepa-
ration for the Sisters Outdoor
Quilt Show,” McCammon
said. “I couldn’t do it without
her!”
McCammon will be giv-
ing a public PowerPoint pre-
sentation Monday night, July
9, about the program.
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