In India, a group of teenage girls have formed a club. Its purpose is simple: Save their village.

Thennamadevi has a high rate of alcoholism, with “most of its 150 male inhabitants participating in ruinous daily drinking sessions,” Britain’s The Guardian reported. 

Unwilling to be consigned to a life of poverty and abuse, the teenagers have taken over local government.

Within six months, they’ve fixed the streetlights, begun work on a library, and set up mobile clinics. The way the self-named “young girls’ club” governs is also worth noting: Decisions are not made until consensus is reached.

These young women want change, and they are not willing to accept anything less than a future of their own making.

“By not accepting our fate we will give others the knowledge they can shape the future,” club member Gowsalya Radhakrishnan told The Guardian.

As anyone who does solutions journalism soon realizes, there are remarkable stories about women working together to improve not just their own lives, but their communities. In India, for instance, this summer 3,000 women dug out lake beds to fight drought. 

Then there was the cattle herder-turned-leader who refused to quit even after she received death threats and her husband threw her out of the house. 

“We need strong women,” she told then-South Asia reporter Mark Sappenfield in 2007.

In Thennamadevi, they have a village’s worth.

Here are our five stories for today, meant to highlight coexistence, understanding, and inspiration at work.