This spring, one brand new film festival is using Montreal's cultural benefits to highlight issues of accessibility and inclusion. Regarding Disability: A Film Festival will make its debut in Montreal on March 21 and will run in various locations until the 28.

Uprooted from their lives, sometimes in a violent manner, many refugees find themselves in alien lands with little or no knowledge of the local language or culture and (generally) without friends or family to help a lending hand. Most western governments refer to refugees as "clients" or "customers" when processing their applications. There's little or no recognition of the person behind the paperwork. That's where Canada's Romero House comes in.

Why are student volunteers in Africa being tasked to do physically exhausting and challenging labour when there really wasn't a purpose to it -- except as some kind of "hardship lesson" for "spoiled youth?" I also began to wonder if we weren't taking work away from locals.

In your community, as many others, everywhere you turn there are volunteers. Whether it be at the community association or town, in one of the many ...