Collège Universel commits $15,000 to Réhabex for social rehabilitation work in the Outaouais

Tashi Farmilo

Collège Universel will contribute $15,000 over three years to the Gatineau community organization Réhabex to help people working toward social rehabilitation and reintegration in the Outaouais. The two groups made this announcement on August 26 in Gatineau, with the money earmarked for essential needs and for bursaries recognizing perseverance.

The private college will pay the amount in equal instalments of $5,000 a year from 2026 to 2028. Each annual instalment will be divided evenly between two streams: one $2,500 portion to help between eight and ten people a year buy essential goods, and another $2,500 to fund four bursaries handed out at the Gala Réhab to people who have stood out for their persistence in returning to society. Réhabex director general Patrick Pilon said the contribution would reach beyond the two organizations. "For Réhabex, this partnership with Collège Universel is at once natural, unique and tremendous," he said. "The quality of the teaching offered at the college, particularly in the field of social work, and its commitment to training the next generation align directly with our mission and the community's needs."

Pilon said the college's support translates into concrete results. "Through its financial commitment, Collège Universel is making a significant contribution to the cause of social rehabilitation," he said, adding that the money would "have direct effects on the ground, notably by supporting more than a dozen people in their rehabilitation journeys."

The college presented the agreement as a continuation of its community involvement in the region. Its Gatineau campus has for several years offered a social work techniques program that trains workers to support people facing a range of social realities. Saloua Zraida, president and chief executive of Collège Universel, said the agreement reflects a wish to act alongside an organization working with vulnerable people. "This partnership with Réhabex reflects our desire to act concretely alongside an organization deeply committed to people in vulnerable situations in the Outaouais," she said. "It fits naturally within Collège Universel's ongoing commitment to training the next generation in social work."

Zraida said moving the program online extends that work. "For several years, in Gatineau, we have been training workers called upon to support people with diverse backgrounds and social realities," she said. "Now also offered online across Quebec, this program allows us to broaden the reach of that commitment while maintaining what is essential to us: a close link with the settings, organizations and communities where our graduates are called upon to work."

Collège Universel is a private college authorized and subsidized by Quebec's Ministry of Higher Education, with campuses in Gatineau, Montréal and Sherbrooke, offering pre-university and technical diplomas as well as attestations of collegial studies in person and online. Formerly known as Collège préuniversitaire Nouvelles Frontières, it bills itself as the only bilingual private college in the Outaouais.

Réhabex is an Outaouais community organization whose mandate is to support the social rehabilitation and reintegration of people who have been through the justice system or are otherwise marginalized. Founded in 1975, the organization offers services that are free, confidential and bilingual, including help with finding work, returning to school and applying to have a criminal record suspended.

"We are proud and deeply grateful to be able to count on a partner so committed to our mission and to the training of tomorrow's professionals," Pilon said.