According to UNICEF, Bangladesh ranks among the top 10 countries in the world with the highest levels of child marriage. Background characteristics such as poverty, living in a rural area, and less education make early marriage and childbirth more likely. In our recent survey of families living near Bluebell School, we learned that about 60% of the parents of young children could not read or write. In addition to being unable to help with schoolwork, many parents may be more interested in sending their children to work or into marriage than to school. The head teacher at Bluebell recently persuaded one family to allow continued schooling for a Bluebell graduate now in Grade 8 at a nearby government school. OfP supports initiatives to keep female students in secondary school such as bursaries to poor families and assistance with costs for textbooks and fees. Please contact us if you would like to contribute to operation of OfP’s primary and pre-primary education programs or to individual support for secondary and post-secondary students.