New understandings

During the activity fair, Romina and I presented “Zombies for organ donation.” It was a pretty big success, people seemed to really enjoy the idea which I’m am proud to say comes from a student from the Chicoutimi campus of the University of Sherbrooke.  I also had fun going around and asking about different projects that are done in other countries. I will say though that the difficulties we face, and those of other countries are both very similar and very different at the same time. I was a bit disappointed that most of the projects presented weren’t very relevant to our situation in Quebec, for social, environmental and seasonal differences. It also made me realize how some things we take for granted while people in other countries have to fight for. One example is mental health, we learn about it in school and try to lower the stigmatization by talking about it. I think people in Quebec are generally open to discussions about this subject whereas most countries in the America’s region don’t have any part of mental health in their curriculum and people are very closed to the subject. If someone is diagnosed with a mental illness they will say that they went crazy, that they are a lesser person, in general there is simply a lot more stigmatization even within the health body. Another example of something we take for granted is the right to abortion. In some countries, abortion is illegal and what is worst is not the law but the fact that the government who issues these laws doesn’t even understand what abortion is. The people believe that abortion includes killing a baby after its birth, or forcing miscarriage whereas abortion by definition is under 20 weeks in most countries. Even though many of the problematics we live in Quebec are similar to the rest of the America’s, it was eyeopening to see what other countries may face that are different from what we do.