The Bangladeshi women taking on hurricanes, hunger and their husbands

The meeting is taking place in Jodindra Nagar in south-west Bangladesh, in a building that, like all the others in the village, is made of mud and iron. Inside it's dark and cool.

Along one wall are some colourful drapes and near the back there's a shelf filled with books including English for Beginners. Outside a cow brushes up against the building searching for shade.

In the middle of the room, around 20 members of the group, called Good Day, have formed themselves into a half-circle on the floor. One of the women has a baby in her lap, half-wrapped in the folds of her sari.

A few of the others are passing round a plate filled with slices of apple and sopedha, a local fruit that tastes a little like a fig, a little like a kiwi. Everyone chats and jokes before settling down. And then it's on to business.

The first item on the agenda is the formation of a new disaster committee – because this community needs a disaster committee. Exactly three years ago, in May 2009, Cyclone Aila smashed this place to pieces. Homes were crushed. Thousands were drowned. A million were made homeless. And an angry wall of water turned the entire region into an extension of the Indian Ocean. Everyone knows it will happen again.

The members of Good Day – which is supported by Christian Aid and its partner organisation in Bangladesh, Shushilan – want to be as ready as they can be for the day the cyclone returns, which is why they are setting up the disaster committee.

But there's a problem. Someone has suggested that a man should lead the committee which is when the young woman in the yellow sari speaks up. Why should it be a man, she asks testily. And so it is agreed: there will be a man as the head of the committee but only as co-convenor with a woman.

To understand how revolutionary this is we need to talk to that woman in the yellow sari. Her name is Selina Begum and she's 29 years old. Her husband once banned her from leaving the house and beat her when she defied him, but now here she is: president of a group-on-a-mission that is mostly made up of women.

Leaning against the wall under one of the windows, her sari billowing around her feet, Selina explains how things used to be.

"In Bangladesh, it's presumed that wives will stay in the home and cook food and provide support to their husband.

"So when I started going out, my husband thought it wasn't desirable – 'Why are you going out?' he said. I started arguing with him and put forward points in my favour and told him why I should be allowed to go out of the home but he was furious and started to beat me. He was beating me while I was holding my son who was three days old."

Selina married when she was 12 years old – it's illegal in Bangladesh to marry so young but it still goes on. Later, she lost a baby girl because there was no proper medication available.

The death hit Selina badly, but it inspired her to attend training on gender, human rights and veterinary techniques which was provided by Shushilan. It meant that when Cyclone Aila hit, Selina was able to administer saline drips to some of the victims.

The training has also inspired the formation of the disaster committee. When disaster comes again – and it will with cyclones hitting here every two to three years – the members of the committee will go out and tell the people of the village what to do. They will tell them to go to the shelter on the high land. They will hopefully save many lives.

I ask Selina what has driven her to achieve all this and also what gave her the strength to resist her husband. "There is some sort of spirit in me," she says.

"In our society, most of the people say that if women are allowed to go out, they will not come back but I say that if my mind is fresh I will go out and I will come back."

She quotes Tagore, the poet, nationalist, novelist and composer of her country's national anthem whose image is everywhere in this country. "Tagore said: 'She is who is not your own, why have you closed her in the room? Let her go out.' I dared to do this. I had the courage."

It's where this daring and courage will take Selina next that's interesting. It's obvious straight away that she has real leadership qualities and she's already talking about the possibility of standing for local government. She wants to protect her community, but sees this will require action on a bigger stage.

Some time ago, she says, she and her neighbours noticed the peculiar behaviour of the weather. More rain. More flooding. Two seasons instead of the usual six. There are some in Bangladesh who say this is the work of God but Selina knows who is really to blame.

"I blame western countries," she says, "because western countries are running their wealth up and up and don't think about the entire world and how the world will survive. Western people are crazy for earning money so don't have enough time to give attention to the poor.

"They should help Bangladesh more and if they do it from their heart, this problem will be solved but they don't do it this way. They're giving money, but not from their heart."

And then she sweeps her hand around the room. Everyone in this room has been affected, she says.

And not just everyone in the room. Right across this part of Bangladesh, millions of people are struggling with what the changing climate has done: rising sea levels, rising temperatures, and more cyclones.

Just a few miles from Selina's village, I meet the Biswas family. Their home can only be reached by an embankment that was left cracked and dry from the sea water the cyclone brought here.

Thirty-two-year-old Sonnashi Biswas, his wife Asha, who's 28, and their children Jointika, 11, and Gopal, nine, survived on this embankment for months after their home was swept away by the flooding. For the first few weeks, they lived under a polythene sheet.

"Both the children were crying," says Asha as she remembers that time, "and I felt: we will not survive any longer. But gradually the weather cleared and the road was revealed in a few places and a little help began to come and we thought: yes, now we will survive."

And they have, with some support from Shushilan and Christian Aid. The model the charities work to is that they don't merely hand out money; instead, they pay for training or provide a little money to start up businesses that have the potential to sustain families.

There's a solid Presbyterian ring to the help that's given here: we'll help you but you have to help yourself too. And it's a philosophy everyone I speak to – Muslim, Christian and Hindu – appreciates because it's how they think too.

In the longer term, what Christian Aid hope is that those they can help with this policy – and it's a tiny number of those who need it – will then pass on their knowledge to others.

And they expect that the people who will do that are the women. Time and again, it's what people here tell me: the women of Bangladesh are the way to make things better; it is the women who will spread the message on how to survive the cyclone and how to build a stronger, more resilient community.

In the middle of an island destroyed by the flooding, someone even quotes Napoleon to me: give me an educated mother, and I'll give you an educated nation.

There is no better place to see this in action than the villages of Jalirpar and Kaligram in the Gopalgonj district, several hours drive north from the district where Selina and Asha live.

The day we visit is Mother Language Day and all along the road there are celebrations going on; at one point, a truck speeds past blasting out the national anthem. Clinging to the roof is a group of young men singing along and waving flags. Mother Language Day celebrates Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan in 1952 and everyone – Hindus, Muslims and Christians – fought for that independence together. Since then the country has managed to retain this ethnic unity, and remains a moderate nation.

The villages of Jalirpar and Kaligram are mainly Christian. The women's forum meeting we attend starts with a prayer. The women are all sitting in plastic chairs around a table draped in tartan. Pinned to the wall behind them is their budget for 2010/11. This group hands out small loans to people in their community who need them and it's run entirely by women. Again, the same message comes through: women are better at this. Women are the key to recovery.

The vice-president of the group, Sebadashi Biswash, adjusts her sari and explains the effect the forum has had in this community. When it started, she says, she was very poor. She lived in a house made of straw and had only one sari. She ate flour and water. That was all she had. Then this forum started. She took a loan and enrolled on an adult education programme. And now here she is, vice-president of the group and a member of the local council. I ask her how many saris she owns now and she laughs. Twenty-five. Thirty maybe. Who knows. "I used to have to live every day in the same clothes," she says. "But now every day I am dreaming of better things."

Sebadashi says it was working together in this group, which is supported by another of Christian Aid's partners Christian Commission for Development in Bangladesh (CCDB), that brought about this success. "When we were individuals," she says, "we were like a single stick that anybody could break. When we are united, we cannot break." Again I hear that it is the women who can really bring change to the country. "Once upon a time, this was a mixed group but the men were not serious and did not give enough time. The government says it's better that you have an all-female group for the same reason – men are not serious."

Back at the meeting of Good Day in Jodindra Nagar, the situation is exactly the same. Because there are more and more women-led households in this part of Bangladesh – sometimes the men are killed by tigers, sometimes they leave to find work and never return, often the cyclone takes them – it is often the women who have to sort out any problems.

"We're facing a huge problem day by day and in our country," says Selina, "women are larger in number and if women remain in the house, then the problem won't be solved. Most of the problems are faced by us when it's a big disaster – that's why it's not wise to sit in the house. It's better to go out."

I ask if other women in Good Day faced the kind of resistance that Selina did from her husband and they burst out into animated discussion. Yes, they say, they did at first but day by day it is reducing. Selina laughs. "Earlier the male used to dominate but now we have started to dominate," she says. "If we get all of the powers all of a sudden, the men will be annoyed and angry. But gradually, we are taking over."

The meeting is coming to an end now and everyone is drifting outside. Leaning against the wall of a neighbouring building is Selina's husband, Abu, and their children Selim Reza, who is 15, and 11-year-old Sumi. Abu, 42, doesn't want to talk to us directly but the translator speaks to him and tells me that he admits it was wrong to beat Selina and that he now accepts her work with Good Day. Selina comes over and hooks her arm through her husband's. "My husband is a good man and we are living a very happy life," she says. "I think he beat me because of the pressure from the neighbours – otherwise, he loves me very much."

We all start walking through the village, a curious crowd keeping close behind us. A few hungry chickens hurry out of the way and out on the path a couple of goats snuffle through some leaves. The training that Selina received means she can now treat these animals when they get sick. Occasionally, tigers come and take the goats and chickens and it's only a question of time before another cyclone comes too and wreaks even greater destruction. But Selina, in her sari of flowers, is optimistic, and realistic.

"In the jungle, if all the animals are together, it's easier to face problems," she says. "We must work together." And then the realism kicks in. "If we were birds, we could go everywhere for food," she says. "Birds have no country so wherever there's food, they can go. But we are not birds. We are people and we are hungry."

Christian Aid Week runs from May13-19. To make a donation, call 08080 006 006 or donate at www.caweek.org. The first £5 donated to Christian Aid Week will be matched by the government pound for pound.