Examples of Support Groups for Women That Make a Difference
Support Groups for Women Tap a Deep Well of Power
Since well before the campaign for women’s suffrage, women of virtue and strength have been coming together to pool their resources and combined will to change their world. Whether through support groups for women, groups affiliated with specific issues, or marches to raise funding for an issue, when women come together, they always make a palpable difference. Now, with the confluence of the desire to collaborate and the power of social media, women can share information about these types of groups through an online community for women.
Some success stories that show how support groups for women and made of women have turned their power to mobilize into concrete results and generate impressive groundswell are:
Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) – This 30-year-old non-profit organization was founded primarily to confront drunk driving, decrease alcohol-related driving accidents and deaths, and support those affected by drunk driving. Many experts suggest that MADD’s campaign to raise awareness about the dangers of driving while intoxicated is partly, but directly responsible for the 40 percent fall in alcohol-related traffic fatalities from 1982 to 2002.
Take Back the Night – The first documented event occurred in 1975, when thousands of Philadelphia women marched through the streets in a candle-light vigil for a young woman murdered a block from her home. Through 1976 and 1977, women across Europe and the United States began to organize and speak up in outraged about the lack of safety for women at night and the common stance of law enforcement that the solution was for women to stay indoors at night. The organization has generated significant attention to the issues of gendered and sexual violence and abuse of women across the globe.
Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation – This is the organization responsible for the “Race for the Cure,” a series of five kilometer run and fitness walks held every year in locations across the globe, to raise awareness about breast cancer and funding for breast cancer research. The event is in its 28th year, and generates somewhere around 250,000 participants a year.
These women’s groups demonstrate the power that women coming together have, and they emphasize how women can leverage online coordination to expand their impact.
