For the past few years, MAC has partnered with the University of Ottawa to send students to Trinidad and Tobago for internships with our colleagues the Women's Institute for Alternative Development (WINAD). In addition to supporting WINAD's work on the Convention on Cluster Munitions and other humanitarian disarmament issues, the students helped with a campaign to end child marriage.

Our Young Professionals (as we call our interns) were there when WINAD first raised the issue with the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago while others continued to work on the campaign after their internship was finished. You can read WINAD's arguments for raising the age of marriage to 18 in Trinidad and Tobago here. 

Recently those Young Professionals saw their work pay off. Within a year of launching a new campaign in which WINAD coordinated the work of 26 NGOs, new legislation was passed and assented to making the minimum age of marriage 18.

We are very pleased our Young Professionals were able to contribute to such important work and continue to be grateful that we are able to work with such committed and effective campaigners in Trinidad and Tobago and around the world.