The 1990s saw the dawning a new phenomenon: raves. At these events, young people, licking lollipops, dance until the wee hours of the morning yet are too often under the influence of ecstasy. After observing the high level of use of this substance during these dance parties, Jean-Sébastien Fallu, a student from the Université de Montréal, undertook to provide information to young ravers so that they were better able to make sound decisions when deciding to use it. Despite minimal funding, the volunteers of the Groupe de recherche et d'intervention psychosociale (GRIP), established in 1997, have succeeded in intervening at more than 80 raves and have visited some thirty schools, cegeps, universities and youth centres. Supplying youngsters with information on drugs and their constituents, the volunteers listen to them and answer their questions as well as distributing condoms and bottled water. In much the same way as Operation Red Nose with alcohol and other existing models in the Netherlands, GRIP-Montréal does not want to stop ecstasy use but rather alleviate and prevent its deleterious consequences.
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It is not only in Quebec that, due to the rapid development of information and communication technologies (ICT), the urgent need for training can be felt. In the Philippines, for example, a company in search of 500 employees was only able to find 11 who were able to work with ICT. As the situation is not as critical in Quebec, 10 engineering students from McGill University, under the aegis of the group Engineers Without Borders, set up the Scala Project, dedicated to putting an end to this persisting penury of manpower. In order to do this, the students have contributed for a year to providing the provinces of Pangasinan and South Cotabato with computer technology by supplying high-performance computers and up-to-date software. While there, they linked these computers to a network and the Internet. They also developed a made-to-measure training program to ensure that Filipinos could use and repair the computer material. The Scala Project will also have an impact on Quebec as the training program, soon to be adapted to the situation in Quebec, will be offered at Montreal's YMCA as well as at other places in the city. Thus, everyone profits!
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With Quebec's pig farm saga, mad cow disease and the much-debated GMOs, the agricultural world is often at the forefront of the news. A shifting world which, since 1975, students from the Université Laval have sought to make more intelligible by organizing the Semaine de l'agriculture, de l'alimentation et de la consommation (SAAC), a week-long event dedicated to agriculture, food and consumption. The 2002 edition, entitled Un univers à cultiver, un monde à partager, sought to demonstrate the importance of this sector in the everyday life of our society. With tasting sessions of local market products, stands on agricultural technologies, tours of a miniature garden and farm, the SAAC fair, recognized as one of the three biggest events of its kind in Quebec, attracted over 12,000 visitors during one weekend in January. Furthermore, the agri-food symposium is in itself a platform for valuable exchanges which has enabled a dozen lecturers and more than 150 participants to discuss and debate the development of the agri-food sector.
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