Kanjeer, Pakistan - Bakhtawar was a good student in the fifth grade at a small school located in a Southern Pakistan village.

She enjoyed learning, laughing with her friends, and spending time with her family. But one evening, as she sat nervously in a chair beside her parents at the local meeting hall, she knew that everything about her childhood was coming to an end. No more school, no more girlfriends, no more fun.

At 15, Bakhtawar was about to become engaged to be married.

But just as the betrothal ceremony was about to begin, a prominent man in the village walked into the hall followed by his wife, who rarely left the house. The room quieted down as the man approached Bakhtawar and her parents. He stopped in front of them and spoke.

"This girl is not mentally or physically ready for marriage and motherhood," he told the wide-eyed parents. "You must wait for three years, until she is eighteen, before she gets married."

The man, Muhammad Asif Soomro, was a member of the local Village Council and an influential member of the community. Participants at the ceremony, including village elders and parents of the soon-to-be bride and groom, all listened intently as Soomro explained the negative impact that early motherhood would have on the girl's health and well-being for the rest of her life.

The guests were completely unaware of the dangers Soomro described, but ultimately were convinced that the marriage, and others involving such young brides, should be postponed. In traditional agrarian communities Pakistan, a woman's prime role in life is to be a mother. To assure the maximum number of fertile years to have children, fathers, especially heads of poor families, married their daughters off straight after puberty.

In fact, Soomro may not have taken issue with the betrothal at all were it not for his role as a community volunteer in a neighboring district for a USAID program called Family Advancement for Life and Health. FALAH teaches that not only do early and un-spaced pregnancies leave girls vulnerable to reproductive health problems, but early marriage also deprives girls of a chance for education and even the opportunity to learn domestic work skills required of them.

Soomro had recently returned from a training session in a town neighboring Thatta encouraging volunteers to spread important messages such as the severe, long-term health risks of early teenage pregnancy.

"We did not realize the consequences of early-age pregnancies," Bakhtawar's father, Abdullah, said. "We do not want our daughter to face any complications having a child too young, so we have decided to postpone the marriage."

Although Pakistan accepted the UN Convention on the Rights of Child prohibiting child marriages in 1990, and current law forbids marriage before a girl is 16, it is rarely enforced especially in rural areas. Communities are often not even aware of the risks involved with early marriage and motherhood.

"I didn't expect to effect such a change in my community so quickly," Soomro said. "But the elders came to agree with me completely. There will be no more marriage for our girls until they have reached a mature enough age."

The impacts of early marriage are substantial not just for young women, but their children as well: Infants born to mothers younger than 20 years old face a higher risk of death shortly from after birth up to age five than those born to older mothers.

The evening of Soomro's intervention, Baktawar beamed when she learned that she could finish her schooling - and growing up before becoming a wife and mother. With eleven siblings, she understood why her parents supported the marriage, but was nonetheless grateful for the delay.

"I have seven sisters and four brothers," Bakhtawar said. "Because we are very poor, my parents wanted me to get married as early as possible, but I was not ready. Now I can go back to school."

Soomro said that the decisive reaction by the two families to his advice has inspired him to deliver additional messages he learned at the training, such as the importance of pre-natal care for pregnant women, providing a trained birth attendant to all women in labor, and proper birth spacing.