An initiative developed by the Christchurch City Council in which the community can share their ideas on a new vision for the future development of the central city following the Canterbury earthquakes.
An urban regeneration initiative which aims to temporarily fill sites left vacant after the September 4, 2010 Canterbury Earthquake and the February 22, 2011 Christchurch Earthquake with creative projects for community benefit.
In the bringing together of art and mental health, Kim Morton is a champion. Following the Christchurch earthquakes, Kim founded Otautahi Creative Spaces, a busy creative community in inner city suburb Philipstown.
A photograph of the ChristChurch Cathedral cross and spire, on display in the Canterbury Quakes exhibition at the Canterbury Museum.
A photograph of the ChristChurch Cathedral cross and spire, on display in the Canterbury Quakes exhibition at the Canterbury Museum.
An entry from Ruth Gardner's blog for 16 September 2010 entitled, "Earthquake Update 16/9".
An entry from Ruth Gardner's blog for 25 January 2013 entitled, "Preservation Project".
Page 2 of Section C of the Christchurch Press, published on Saturday 2 February 2013.
Video of people building the 10 Square Metre Office Building, the new Gap Filler Headquarters.
A photograph of a band performing at the Outdoor Music Room.
A photograph of wire fences which have been placed around the property at 390 Oxford Terrace.
A photograph of an excavator demolishing Siobhan Murphy's house at 436 Oxford Terrace.
A photograph looking down the Avon River to the house at 2 Bangor Street.
A photograph of the house at 2 Bangor Street, taken from across the Avon River.
Schools are an important part of any community, and two years on from the start of the earthquakes in Canterbury many are still coping with damage to classrooms, and with dramatically reduced rolls.
Parts of the facade of the Anglican Community of the Sacred Name building on Barbadoes Street ended on the street during the magnitude 7.1 earthquake in Christchurch on Saturday 4-9-2010.
Parts of the facade of the Anglican Community of the Sacred Name building on Barbadoes Street ended on the street during the magnitude 7.1 earthquake in Christchurch on Saturday 4-9-2010.
The UC CEISMIC Canterbury Earthquakes Digital Archive was built following the devastating earthquakes that hit the Canterbury region in the South Island of New Zealand from 2010 – 2012. 185 people were killed in the 6.3 magnitude earthquake of February 22nd 2011, thousands of homes and businesses were destroyed, and the local community endured over 10,000 aftershocks. The program aims to document and protect the social, cultural, and intellectual legacy of the Canterbury community for the purposes of memorialization and enabling research. The nationally federated archive currently stores 75,000 items, ranging from audio and video interviews to images and official reports. Tens of thousands more items await ingestion. Significant lessons have been learned about data integration in post-disaster contexts, including but not limited to technical architecture, governance, ingestion process, and human ethics. The archive represents a model for future resilience-oriented data integration and preservation products.
This analysis employs both qualitative and quantitative approaches to identify how young adults in New Zealand aged 18-25 years old have engaged with All Right? campaign material. A survey targeting young adults returned 51 viable out of 117 responses due to participation prerequisites. From the survey, five participants elaborated on their thoughts in an in-depth interview voluntarily. Interviews were conducted with key personnel from All Right? to craft broader understanding of the initiative whilst enhancing knowledge of mental health frameworks and their application. Ciaran Fox, Lucy Daeth and Sara Epperson, who have been imperative to the success of the campaign, shared their working experience in the community and public health sector and how this intertwines to their current roles at All Right?. Discussions of key frameworks, community conversations, the development of communication strategies and how All Right? approached Canterbury publics in a post-earthquake setting provided insight to the importance of understanding community circumstance in initial crisis and the correlated secondary stressors.
An entry from Ruth Gardner's blog for 7 September 2010 entitled, "Sleepless in Seismicland".
An entry from Ruth Gardner's blog for 13 September 2010 entitled, "A Week of Wonders".
An entry from Ruth Gardner's blog for 2 July 2012 entitled, "Walking on Worcester".
An entry from Ruth Gardner's blog for 10 April 2011 entitled, "Day 48 - Foraging and Fences".
An entry from Ruth Gardner's blog for 6 June 2011 entitled, "Circumnavigating the City".
Page 19 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Friday 10 September 2010.
A photograph of an architectural detail above a window of Donna Allfrey's house at 406 Oxford Terrace.
A photograph taken inside Robin Duff's house at 386 Oxford Terrace. Broken furniture and rubbish litter the ground.
A photograph taken inside Robin Duff's house at 386 Oxford Terrace. Broken furniture and rubbish litter the ground.
After a disaster, cities experience profound social and environmental upheaval. Current research on disasters describes this social disruption along with collective community action to provide support. Pre-existing social capital is recognised as fundamental to this observed support. This research examines the relationship between sense of place for neighbourhood, social connectedness and resilience. Canterbury residents experienced considerable and continued disruption following a large and protracted sequence of earthquakes starting in September 2010. A major aftershock on 22 February 2011 caused significant loss of life, destruction of buildings and infrastructure. Following this earthquake some suburbs of Christchurch showed strong collective action. This research examines the features of the built environment that helped to form this cooperative support. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 20 key informants followed by 38 participants from four case study suburbs. The objectives were to describe the community response of suburbs, to identify the key features of the built environment and the role of social infrastructure in fostering social connectedness. The last objective was to contribute to future planning for community resilience. The findings from this research indicated that social capital and community competence are significant resources to be called upon after a disaster. Features of the local environment facilitated the formation of neighbourhood connections that enabled participants to cope, manage and to collectively solve problems. These features also strengthened a sense of belonging and attachment to the home territory. Propinquity was important; the bumping and gathering places such as schools, small local shops and parks provided the common ground for meaningful pre-existing local interaction. Well-defined geography, intimate street typology, access to quality natural space and social infrastructure helped to build the local social connections and develop a sense of place. Resourceful individuals and groups were also a factor, and many are drawn to live near the inner city or more natural places. The features are the same well understood attributes that contribute to health and wellbeing. The policy and planning framework needs to consider broader social outcomes, including resilience in new and existing urban developments. The socio-political structures that provide access to secure and stable housing and local education should also be recognised and incorporated into local planning for resilience and the everyday.
Background: There has been a psychopathology focus in disaster research examining adolescent mental health and wellbeing, but recently studies have begun to also examine wellbeing-related constructs. Although an increased risk of posttraumatic stress disorder has been established in disaster-exposed adolescents, comparatively little is known about how disasters impact adolescent wellbeing, nor how factors within the post-disaster environment interact to influence holistic adolescent mental health and wellbeing. Objective: The objective of this study was to describe the holistic mental health and wellbeing of adolescents living in an earthquake-struck city by considering a range of mental health and wellbeing indicators, as well as risk and protective factors hypothesised to influence mental health and wellbeing. The dual-factor model of mental health was used as a framework to guide this study. Method: A survey of Christchurch secondary school students was used to gather data about their subjective wellbeing, risk of low wellbeing, psychological distress, quality of life, exposure to Adverse Childhood Experiences, social support from friends and family, school connectedness, and expectations about future quality of life. Results: A slim majority of students reported good subjective wellbeing (52.3%) and high current quality of life (56.4%), whereas a larger majority reported low risk of psychological distress (79%). An equal proportion of students reported high and low risk of low wellbeing. There were no statistically significant differences in any of the variables measured between adolescents who did and did not live through the Christchurch earthquakes. Regression analyses identified that school connectedness, social support from friends and family, and future expectations of quality of life significantly predicted subjective wellbeing, risk of low wellbeing, risk of psychological distress, and current quality of life. The number of Adverse Childhood Experiences significantly predicted only risk of psychological distress when the effects of other variables were controlled for. Conclusion: The findings of this study indicate that there is a low mean level of wellbeing and quality of life in this sample of adolescents living in a severely earthquake- affected community. School connectedness, social support from family and friends, and expectations about future quality of life were shown to significantly predict variance in subjective wellbeing, quality of life, and psychological distress. This suggests that there are social and environmental factors that can be targeted to improve holistic mental health and wellbeing in disaster-affected adolescents who have experienced high levels of trauma. Conclusions in this study are limited by the representativeness of the sample, the cross- sectional nature of the study, and potential sampling bias.