NZ uni students use Facebook to organise quake clean-up

Updated September 9, 2010 08:58:44

Law students from Canterbury University using Facebook to call for volunteers to grab shovels and spades and join in with the post-earthquake clean-up have been answered with up to 7,000 offers of help.

The Christchurch earthquake and the devastation which has damaged over 100,000 buildings - leaving thousands homeless and with a repair bill that has now risen to $4 billion - is being tackled by students going door-to-door to help homeowners and businesses clear rubble.

Sam Johnson who set up the Facebook page tells Geraldine Coutts why he initially thought it would be the best way to help.

Presenter: Geraldine Coutts
Speaker: Sam Johnson, Canterbury University student and organiser behind Facebook page "Student Volunteer base for Earthquake clean up"

JOHNSON: Straight after the earthquake the nature of students we didn't lose our internet, so a lot of people created parties and things - 'I survived the earthquake' parties, or try to sell t-shirts that said 'I survived the earthquake' type things. And I thought actually students could do a little bit better than that and actually come and support the community at a time like this. It's pretty major and Christchurch has been affected as I'm sure you've heard and listeners have heard in many different ways. And students and young people are the people who have the time at the moment because the university and schools have been cancelled, the university's been cancelled until Monday week. We've had two weeks off...

COUTTS: Cancelled because of the earthquake?

JOHNSON: Because of the earthquake, and the schools as well have been delayed and young people have the physical ability to go out and actually shovel and do a lot of the work. So we're working with the army and the civil defence and the council and just helping to clean up around Christchurch.

COUTTS: Well who have answered your Facebook call, how many?

JOHNSON: Well I started with 200 at the start, I invited 200 people to the group. We're looking at now 6,800 awaiting reply, 1,300 may be attending, and 3,142 attending. So just absolutely overwhelming actually, we've got so many people. On the first day we had about 350 people out in the areas of Harewood and we've cleaned up that area fairly smartly. And yesterday we had 700 people out in different places around Christchurch. We had two meeting points, 350 people at each place.

COUTTS: Well who's coordinating this army of volunteers that you've rallied?

JOHNSON: We've it's very much a team effort, there's a core group of 10 of us who are burning through phone bills quicker than anything ringing each other and sorting everything out. We've got a key liaison person in each place, and they'll sort of tee in with the civil defence and the council and the army's now been brought in to deal with the numbers, just the mass of it and trying to get it cleaned up. But literally the volunteers are just incredible, they just keep working and keep working. We've got a big team of people who are catering for the numbers, a church group and lots of support coming in. We've got support from the government yesterday which is fantastic, Minister Paula Bennett has granted some money from the Youth Development Fund to help feed the people and keep everyone happy. And it's just such a team effort, it's incredible, they just literally go in to someone's house with a wheelbarrow and shovel and it's complete physical work that a loader or digger can't do and load up the silt, cart it out and put it on the road, and then the tractors come along and scrape it up.

COUTTS: That's an excellent effort by the way, have you had much reaction or interaction with the people who you are helping?

JOHNSON: A lot actually, I mean not myself personally as I'm more the coordination front, but certainly talking to the volunteers themselves. It's really rewarding because the residents just have no idea how they're ever going to get the stuff out of their property. You look out over a property and it's just got this silt, it's heavy, wet, it looks like wet concrete. Silt - it's built up, it's on top of the daffodils, you can just see the tips of the daffodils sticking out right round the edges of the garden. And we've had people just crying on their doorstops in thanks and praise for the team. We've sent sort of 20 people into a property at a time, and it doesn't take 20 people long with shovels and wheelbarrows and clean up a property.