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Maimuna: A Tale of a Young Leader

Maimuna Ahmad is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Teach For Bangladesh. After spending the two years working as a mathematics teacher in a Washington D.C. public high school while doing her Fellowship in Teach For America, she had moved to Bangladesh earlier that year leaving her family behind in the United States. Growing up between Bangladesh and America, she was clear from a very early age that she would spend some part of her adult life living in and trying to contribute to Bangladesh. She moved to Dhaka initially to explore where she could personally make the most impact. It was that drive to make an impact that took Maimuna across the border to visit classrooms in a low-income community in Pune, India in December 2011, before Teach For Bangladesh (TFB) was born.

While Maimuna was roaming around the underdeveloped neighborhood of Pune, she met a child named Chaitrali who guided her to nearby places. Chaithrali’s father had passed away. Chaithrali’s mother worked as domestic helper nearby and rarely came home before evening, leaving the child in charge of taking care of herself after school.

It was suddenly evident to Maimuna what was next for her. She had always known that there were tens of thousands of children just like Chaitrali being deprived of a quality education in Bangladesh. But intellectually knowing something is different from knowing something in heart. Sometimes it can take going to a different part of the world to realize a truth that’s been at home all along. At that moment, Maimuna knew that if she were not a part of trying to make a difference in the lives of children in Bangladesh, she would regret it for the rest of her life.

Over the next two months, Maimuna wrote the first business plan for Teach For Bangladesh, building off the model of Teach For America, the program that initially brought her into the classroom, and Teach For India, which she was visiting when she met Chaitrali. She consulted Bangladeshi educators, entrepreneurs and leaders to adapt the model – that was already gathering fast momentum globally – for the context of Bangladesh.

Maimuna faced problems to receive necessary approvals and permissions from government to start a Non-Government Organization. It was tough for her to convince everyone what she was trying to start. In Bangladesh, it is a little unusual that a young lady is trying to start a whole new concept in the development sector. But, with the help of renowned educators of Bangladesh and also some high stake well-wishers, she finally was able to start implementing her dream.

Five years, 4,500 students and 33 partner schools later, Maimuna has built Teach For Bangladesh into a highly selective leadership development program that recruits exceptional Bangladeshi graduates and young professionals to fight for educational equity and systemic change, starting with a two-year full-time teaching commitment to Bangladesh’s most vulnerable students.

From Maimuna’s perspective, one of the most significant challenges in education around the world and in Bangladesh is a crisis of expectation. In Bangladesh, we simply do not expect greatness or excellence from children in marginalized communities the same way we expect them from children in affluent communities. There is not such research that compares the performance of students in the elite schools such as Sunbeams, International School of Dhaka and Viquarunessa to government primary schools or NGO schools serving low-income communities.

Instead, we mostly compare government primary schools in cities with counterparts in rural areas. She exemplifies, “When a child demonstrates excellence in such schools, we are surprised, and we laud the achievement as exceptional. Imagine if instead, excellence was the expectation of all students, and every time a child demonstrated excellence, this was considered further validation of the potential of all children. I believe that such a re-orientation would drive radical change in our classrooms, our communities, and our nation.”

She commends Bangladesh on its progress, “While we’ve made great strides in education in Bangladesh, especially in enrollment and gender parity, Bangladesh still has one of the lowest spending in education compared to overall GDP in the world. Most children from low-income communities spend just a couple of hours in school every day. Until we as a society change our expectation that all children have not only the ability to achieve greatness but also the right to equal opportunity, it will be hard to drive sustainable systemic change.”

Maimuna’s deepest wish is to raise a generation of brave children through youth empowerment, “I want every child to have an unshakeable belief in themselves, and for that belief to drive them to take risks. This mentality includes intellectual risks in the classroom – venturing to solve a math problem in a different way than the teacher taught, or writing a paragraph when asked to describe the characteristics of a cow. This includes risks outside of the classroom – in standing up for their beliefs, in making friends with people who are different, and creating the change that they want for themselves.”

She points out that TFB Fellows encounter tragic scenarios, “Our Fellows work within communities where they come across stories of abuse, prostitution, rape, pregnancy and child marriage. They integrate community advocacy into their classroom content and afterschool activities so our students learn to be change makers.” Recently, TFB showcased some of the projects that Fellows are implementing to encourage boys and girls to speak up against social injustices in their communities, “As a teacher, you build the most effective change when your students speak up for themselves,” she affirms.

She was fortunate enough to have been surrounded by strong adults who encouraged her to pursue excellence from a very young age, “While the strong female role models I had in my life like my incredible mother and brilliant grandmothers, the men in my family also played a significant role. I remember from a very early age being encouraged to participate in discussions and debates that adults would have in our home – on every topic from politics to the economy.” When children experience adults engaging them with respect and encouragement, it is deeply validating and builds the foundation for confident adults, “When I was starting Teach For Bangladesh and had doubts about my qualifications and experience, an uncle gave me the push I needed by telling me that the “right” leader for any job is the one who is willing to show up every day to do the hard work.”

Maimuna is leading an organization  to empower the youth of Bangladesh. She herself is a true example of a young leader.