10 years on It
has been a decade since Christchurch was rocked by a 6.3-magnitude earthquake which claimed the lives of 185 people and caused widespread damage across the city. Fortunately, no lives were lost on campus; however, a lot has changed over the last 10 years. CANTA’s news editor Emily Heyward takes a look back at the Student Volunteer Army’s role in the aftermath of the quake and what has changed for students over that time. “You’re just self-serving young people.... Tarred with the same brush,” screamed an old guy at Sam Johnson, the founder and now CEO of the Student Volunteer Army Foundation. When Christchurch residents were told there was a chance students would turn up at their doors ready to help shovel silt from driveways and backyards in the aftermath of the February 22 earthquake, many thought it was some kind of sick joke. “They said oh no you won’t, you’re a bunch of bad people,” Sam remembers. Students were “deeply unpopular” in the Ilam community pre-quake. Thursday mornings would look the same every week. Council bins would be tipped over and rubbish strewn everywhere – the aftermath of a rowdy Wednesday night. Essentially, they weren’t liked, Sam says. “The residents just absolutely hated students, and students were in the media every week just for being bad people,” Sam says. So, when the earthquake spewed up silt (officially referred to as liquefaction) and buried streets under thick sludge creating an end-of-the-world vibe, Sam saw it is an opportunity to do something positive in the community, and at the same time, shake up how students were being perceived. Armed with shovels and gumboots, 11,000 students hit suburbs under siege by liquefaction, helping locals restore some sense of order to their lives at a time of massive uncertainty. They distributed clean water, food and helped lay sandbags across the city; putting in about 80,000 hours collectively over February and March. Former Christchurch City Councillor and UC alumni Sue Wells says students went from being viewed negatively, to being seen as a “bright piece of joy”, essentially overnight. “In my opinion, some people in the community around the university had a very dim view of student behaviour [pre-quake]. It was about binge drinking and vandalism,” she says. Sue, who was chair of the city council’s planning and regulatory committee at the time, handling all things alcohol-ban related around campus, says the way students rallied together to support
