This paper examines how a group of women from the city of Bhopal, in India, experienced the process of empowerment. Two events, unconnected with each other and separated by 8 years, played a significant role in mobilizing these women, These were the gas leak disaster of 1984, when the poisonous gas fumes escaped from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal and the communal conflict of 1992, when riots erupted in many parts of India. This study explores the methods and strategies adopted by the individual women as well as by a women's organization, Mahashakti Sewa Kendra (MSK), in forming a group for community action and helping themselves. Beginning from a position of extreme weakness, through a delicate process of awareness building and group formation, urban women in the shantytowns and slums of Bhopal realized that their deprivation was changeable and they had alternatives choose from.