There Is Always Someone Worse Off... There Is Always Someone Worse Off

There is always someone worse off... There is always someone worse off... There is always someone worse off... There is always someone worse off... There is always someone worse off... There is always someone worse off... There is always someone worse off... The unheard voices of women from the Christchurch earthquakes and beyond Written by Liz Gordon with input from NCWNZ Women’s Voices Research Committee members Rosemary Du Plessis Helen Gibson Judith Sutherland February 2014 National Council of Women of New Zealand Christchurch Branch Acknowledgements The Women’s Unheard Voices project is the second stage of a larger project devoted to recording women’s unique experiences of the Christchurch earthquakes in 2010-2011. Our thanks go to everyone who assisted and participated - especially the women who told their stories and the considerable work that was undertaken by volunteer interviewers. We want to first acknowledge the Christchurch Branch of the National Council of Women, the Otautahi Māori Women’s Welfare League and the Christchurch Branch of PACIFICA. These organisations all participated in planning the research and collecting stories. The NCW Christchurch was the co-ordinating organisation for the project, and we are grateful to its members for their support and to the National Office of NCWNZ for their administrative assistance. We wish to thank the Lotteries Community Sector Grants Board. Without your financial support we would not have been able to record the compelling stories in this report. We have been true to your goals – we have both enhanced the research capacity of our organisation and provided an enduring and inspiring account of women’s responses to the challenges posed by Christchurch earthquakes. An experienced social researcher, Brigid Buckenham, made a major contribution to the project, identifying potential participants, liaising with community organisations, and conducting a significant number of interviews. Elizabeth Ashby, our University of Canterbury Summer Scholarship student, processed interview records, assisted with administration and conducted interviews. Rosemary Baird edited audio recordings and converted audio files for uploading on the UC CEISMIC website. We want to thank them for the energy, expertise and commitment they brought to the project. We are also grateful to the University of Canterbury for partly funding Elizabeth Ashby’s scholarship, and providing office space and computers. The UC CEISMIC team have ensured that most of the interview records are publicly available through the QuakeStudies digital archive. We wish to once again thank all the women who agreed to tell their stories. You inspired us, made us happy, sad and made us cry. The resilience shown by the women of Christchurch in the face of thousands of earthquakes is remarkable. We would like to acknowledge our families, friends and supporters, without whom this research would not have proceeded so smoothly. Special thanks to Bruce Sutherland, who waited patiently as our Research Committee meetings stretched into the evenings, and who was endlessly supportive. Judith Sutherland, Rosemary Du Plessis, Helen Gibson, Liz Gordon Women’s Voices Research Committee 1 February 2014 Contents Preface 1 Background 2 Women’s unheard voices 5 The first earthquakes - 4 September 2010 7 The February earthquakes 15 Other earthquakes and aftershocks 26 Getting resources 30 Housing 37 Damage 42 Struggles with EQC and insurance 47 The effects on the women 54 Family life 61 Effects on children 64 Changing communities 71 Christchurch present and future 79 Conclusion to this part of the study 86 Glossary 89 References 91 Appendix 1: Interview questions 92 Appendix 2: Interviewers 93 Preface After the devastating 6.3 magnitude quake in Christchurch on 22 February 2011, the media gave much attention to heroic stories of rescue, the comments of decision- makers, or people who were quake ‘victims’. The Women’s Voices project was initiated in 2011 by the Christchurch Branch of the National Council of Women of New Zealand to ensure that women’s everyday stories of endurance, day-to-day support for families, friends and neighbours, and informal and formal community activities were also documented. This report presents the stories of women interviewed in 2013 during the second stage of this project. A further report will combine these findings with material from interviews conducted in late 2011 and 2012. Interviewers used a life story approach to find out about women’s earthquake experiences. Open-ended questions about their lives before the quakes; their quake experiences; the impacts of the quakes; their situation at the time of the interview; and their aspirations for their families/ whānau, neighbourhoods and Christchurch as a city were used to elicit the stories analysed in this report.1 The University of Canterbury Human Ethics Committee reviewed and approved the information sheets, interview guidelines and consent processes. Participants first consented to have their stories recorded and only consented to the use of their stories once they had received the written summaries of their interviews. They had the opportunity to use their own names, or pseudonyms. Some of them chose to use both their given names and family names. This report, based on interview summaries reviewed, revised and approved by participants, uses only their first names (including pseudonyms). Many of the women whose experiences are included in this report chose to have their full stories included in the NCWNZ Women’s Voices Archive located in the UC CEISMIC QuakeStudies digital archive. Some of them also agreed to the recordings of their interviews being publicly accessible. Search the website for the names of the women in this report and read a fuller account of their earthquake experiences.2 Information associated with each story indicates how this information can be used. Many women consented to the use of their stories in reports, books, articles, exhibitions and museum installations. This report considers key themes in these earthquake stories. It also shows how specific women spoke about their experiences and made sense of what happened to them and others. The research is an attempt to make their voices accessible, for them to be heard, and for action to be taken on the issues relating to response, recovery and rebuilding that they identify. Rosemary Du Plessis, Research Coordinator 1 See Appendix 1 for the interview schedule used in the Women’s Unheard Voices project. 2 https://quakestudies.canterbury.ac.nz/store/collection/228 1 Background The Christchurch earthquakes can be viewed from many disciplines: geology, geography, history, disaster management, psychology, sociology etc. For the past two years, the National Council of Women in Christchurch has been researching the earthquakes from the perspective of women who lived through them and continue to experience their effects. Why women? In the period immediately after the disastrous earthquakes of September 2010 and February 2011 it appeared that the primary voices being heard on radio and television and represented in print media were male. The focus was on response and recovery, on political leaders and decision-makers, recovery services, security, and the fencing off and demolition of dangerous buildings. There were few opportunities to hear female voices in the public sphere, and photo line-ups of key people responsible for earthquake recovery were often exclusively male. Behind the scenes, women were very busy keeping families together, coping with the challenges of accessing food and cooking it, getting children to school (often over poor roads and in remote places), providing support for neighbours, sustaining communities and helping others. The Christchurch Branch of the National Council of Women were acutely aware that earthquake response and recovery depended on these actions, and decided to undertake its own research into the effects of the quakes on local women. This decision reflected the approach taken by Enarson (1998: 167) who concluded that there are “his and hers” disasters. She argues that “studying whether and how women in different life circumstances respond to hazards and participate in relief and reconstruction is an important line of enquiry”. The Women’s Voices project was launched in September 2011and the first stage was carried out by teams of trained volunteer interviewers between November 2011 and November 2012, when a first report was produced for the project’s major funder, The Christchurch City Council. Interviews continued beyond that date and by early 2013, over 100 interviews had been completed. If the women who told their stories consented, written summaries of their stories and audio recordings of their interviews were included in the University of Canterbury’s QuakeStudies digital archive. Photos of some of the narrators and edited videos of some interviews have been added to the archive.3 The women interviewed during the first stage of this research were identified through the social networks of NCWNZ and other women’s organisations in Christchurch. Attempts were made to contact women involved in Civil Defence, earthquake recovery work in a voluntary or professional capacity, community activists and advocates, as well as women from different parts of the city, in different life circumstances and of different ages. There was a particular interest in including women with children younger and older children, and women involved in a range for occupations as well as small

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