Student Volunteer Army

The Student Volunteer Army (SVA) is a student movement born from a Facebook page started following the Christchurch earthquakes. The network has no military affiliation and is focused on facilitating community action through youth engagement, preparing for disasters and service. The clubs and volunteers are supported using tools provided by the Volunteer Army Foundation (VAF).

There are now three student volunteer clubs that have grown directly from the Christchurch Student Response; the UC Student Volunteer Army, the Wellington SVA, and the Otago Polytech Scarfie Army together with school students across New Zealand actively getting involved in their communities as happened in Christchurch.

In the days immediately following the September 4 Christchurch earthquake, while the university's Ilam campus was closed to enable the buildings to be checked for structural safety, 21-year-old Sam Johnson started a Facebook event called the "Student Base for Earthquake Clean up" and invited friends to join with him in assisting local residents with non-lifesaving tasks, in particularly cleaning up soil liquefaction residue on the streets and gardens of the city.

Johnson invited 200 friends to the event which soon grew to have over 3000 attendees and over 2500 volunteers contributing to the clean up.

In an effort to continue the momentum of the initial cleanup, Johnson and the key organisers of the student initiative, Jade Rutherford, Gina Scandrett, Chris Duncan, Tommy Young and Sam Gifford, decided to work with the University of Canterbury Students Association President Kohan McNab to create a student club focused on student volunteering; named the UC Student Volunteer Army.

The devastating 6.3 magnitude earthquake again struck Christchurch at 12.51 on 22 February 2011, causing widespread devastation and destruction. 185 people were killed, thousands of homes were damaged, and hundreds of buildings were uninhabitable. Johnson and the six original team members of the Student Volunteer Army teamed up with the University of Canterbury Student Association team, led by President Kohan McNab, Louis Brown from the Te Waipounamu Foundation, Nathan Durkin and Anthony Rohan from White Elephant Trust together with student clubs ENSOC, LAWSOC and MUSOC.

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Wikipedia