The Power of Associations

Traveling around rural Bangladesh, I got the opportunity to meet with several women who came up with an interesting way to solve their problems and deliver justice to those whose culture were failing them. They formed associations, because they found that in numbers they had much more power than they did as individuals.
I spoke with women from 11 different Women's Associations, which were developed of their own initiative, although assisted by an NGO for logistical things, like information on how to open a bank account, or how to get organized, or in leadership training. Some were recently organized, and some had been around for a few years. Most were formed to tackle similar issues: domestic violence, early marriage, dowry. Some had more specific goals, like the case of a woman being raped by her father-in-law or a village that needed to get the local prostitute to either change her line of work or to get out of town. Most problems were dealt with the same way, discussion with the person causing the problem and the affected families.
Before the formation of the group, women most often accepted their victimization as fate. Taking abuse as something that goes with the territory of being a married woman, not something that could be stopped. They felt powerless against their husbands, who controlled every aspect of their lives.
The women were able to not only organize themselves to curb the violence against them, they were able to pool their resources and save for the future. Most of the associations had each member contribute some amount money, anywhere between 20 to 50 Taka a month (about 20 to 50 cents) which would be saved in a bank account. The money could then be used for things like hospital costs if one had to be rushed to a hospital during child birth, or if a family couldn't cover school fees for their children. One association was pooling it's money in order to build a pond to cultivate fish to feed the village. 
Most of the time when a woman earned an income, she was forced to turn the money over to her husband, thereby losing any economic power to make decisions for her family. Here, she had not only the power of her own savings but those of her group members. She no longer had to stand alone and suffer. She now had the power of an association.