Nearly 60 million children in Bangladesh are denied high-quality education as a result of an inequitable system. Teach for Bangladesh is addressing this problem.   Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world, and yet a country of great opportunities. However, those opportunities are not evenly distributed across society. Many children live on less than $2 per day. They go to school for as little 2-3 hours per day, often in classrooms that can swell to 120 students or more. Of the 17 million children who begin elementary school each year, only around 2 million will graduate from high school. The teachers themselves are sometimes poorly educated, with most holding a high school diploma or a few years of college at most. “The education that they’re able to deliver, despite their best intentions, doesn’t really serve the children that they’re trying to help,” says Maimuna Ahmad of Teach for Bangladesh. “This is in stark contrast to high-income schools that are offering a world-class education. We work to bridge this divide.” Teach for Bangladesh is tackling this challenge through a program modeled after Teach for America. Young professionals are recruited to spend two years at a low-income school in Bangladesh and receive leadership development training along the way. By taking this approach, Maimuna said Teach for Bangladesh is creating more than just skilled teachers. “They are changing the life trajectory of children in their classrooms while building their own skillsets. They can work as lifelong advocates for equity across Bangladesh,” she explains. From Student to Teacher Growing up, Maimuna split her time between Bangladesh and the suburbs of Washington, D.C. While she was in Bangladesh, she was able to attend private schools thanks to her family’s background. Like many American children, Maimuna’s parents asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up — a question that is not often asked of children in Bangladesh. “Every day on my way to school, I was passing children in the streets who were begging and selling trinkets,” Maimuna said. “I grew up with an acute understanding that I had been born lucky, and I felt a need to pay it forward.” Maimuna studied international relations and political science at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. She was on the path to law school when Teach for America approached her. She met with a recruiter not much older than her who talked about the injustice that he witnessed in his classroom and realized the opportunity she had to take a stand against the injustice she had witnessed in the educational system. “That opportunity to put my money where my mouth was and get involved and not just intellectualize about social justice but get in the trenches was really exciting to me.,” Maimuna said. Maimuna was placed as a high school algebra teacher in Washington, D.C. She calls those two years in the classroom some of the toughest but most fulfilling that she could ask for. All the while, she couldn’t stop thinking about how the injustice she witnessed in the U.S. was similar to what she had seen growing up in Bangladesh. She thought that the Teach for America might work in Bangladesh, but she wasn’t sure because she hadn’t lived there since was a child. She took some time off after finishing Teach for America to reconnect to her roots in Bangladesh. While there, she began working for a legal aid organization, but couldn’t get her mind off of teaching. “Somehow, I kept finding excuses to get back into schools and back into classrooms,” Maimuna said. “I began to realize that there was this incredible need and there was something that really spoke to me about addressing this issue.” Becoming an Entrepreneur Maimuna had the drive to become a social entrepreneur, but as a 20-something with a liberal arts education, she didn’t know if she had the skills to back it up. She began seeking advice from friends, family, and other entrepreneurs. One of the key pieces of advice she heard was