Rejection, intimidation, and physical or verbal abuse are sometimes the everyday lot of many elementary and high-school students. Despite public awareness campaigns and advertising, these situations persist and have travelled down through the ages. Aware of the extent of the problem, and especially of its negative repercussions, a group of four students in preschool education at the Université du Québec à Rimouski chose to take action by founding the Comité de concientisation du rejet des pairs in September 2002. Following extensive research and a survey of some 200 university students made up of questions concerning their personal experience of the subject, the quartet ended up writing the play T’es qui toué? To date, the play, which took over a year and a half to create, has been presented in three schools, to 300 students, as well as during UQAR’s first colloquium on preschool and elementary education. Thanks to a shocking theatrical performance and touching testimony at the end of the activity, the T’es qui toué project has led children to reflect on this issue and the role they play in it.
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Made up of students from the engineering department at the Université de Sherbrooke, the Groupe de Collaboration en Ingénierie de l’Université de Sherbrooke (GCIUS) aims to enable future engineers to make the most of their technical knowledge by participating in international cooperation projects. This group, whose mission is to develop, finance and carry out a humanitarian aid project in engineering where the local community is encouraged to contribute to the work in order to promote technological and cultural exchange, is already at its third edition. In 2002, the members of GCIUS worked in the city of Saint-Marc in Haiti where they undertook the renovation of several classrooms and a community centre. The following year, the group travelled to San Juan de Lurigancho, a suburb of Lima, Peru. This time the students constructed a building which was to serve as a professional training centre for youngsters. This year, the GCIUS is currently in Peru again where they will complete the construction of a health centre for the local community and also for women who have been the victims of abuse.
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“When hunger strikes”, a few words which, day after day, motivate the dozen students who manage the operations of the Dépanne-moi organization. Founded in the fall of 2002 at the Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, the organization has set itself the task of reducing poverty on campus by providing food to those students in need. For, say what you like, although university nourishes the mind, it does not necessarily fill the stomach. This is all the more obvious ever since an UQAT internal survey conducted last year revealed that almost 40% of students experience severe financial difficulties. It is therefore principally to help those who juggle with this financial insecurity that Dépanne-moi distributes food tokens throughout the school year, as well as food hampers at Christmas and perishable and non-perishable food items every two weeks. By working closely with the UQAT financial services and student life services, Dépanne-moi optimizes its involvement. Since January 2003, the organization has responded to over 80 requests for food aid, thus enabling an important number of students to improve their quality of life.
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