Quebec Students Helping Others

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31151, 30 August 1966, Page 5

Quebec Students Helping Others

(N .Z.P.A.-Reuter)

MONTREAL.

With about £35,000 provided by the Govment, 81 young people from Quebec’s technical institutes and colleges are devoting their summer holdiays to work on projects in underprivileged communities.

Organising the work of helping others is the two-year-old Student Workers of Quebec, which unites high school and college students of the province. One of the projects on which the student workers are engaged is at St. Roch, a slum area of Quebec City, where the people have poor housing, low salaries, and no facilities for leisure. “We de not want to revolutionise St. Roch,” said one worker. “We simply want to help the people to help themselves.”

Typical of the students’

current projects is one in the hamlet of Gros Morne, which has a population of 600. There is no local government and more than 50 per cent of the inhabitants live on unemployment assistance. More than 80 per cent are illiterate. The student workers are introducing modern sanitation, professional guidance, and development of community organisations. In each of this year’s 22 projects, the students are working with established cooperative, labour and welfare agencies.