Sam Johnson (activist)

Sam Johnson (born 14 February 1989) is a social entrepreneur based in Christchurch, New Zealand who is known as the founder of the Student Volunteer Army and was named 2012 Young New Zealander of the Year.

Johnson was reported in 2012 as having a 98% approval rating in Christchurch by The Press and is ranked number 22 on the New Zealand Reader's Digest top 100 trusted people list. Johnson has presented as a keynote speaker worldwide with highlights being in London at the 2012 World Volunteer Conference, in Saudi Arabia as a guest of Princess Al Alnoon Foundation for Youth Development, and Japan at the Google Big Tent on Technology in Disasters.

Johnson is an advocate and ambassador of several causes and actively volunteers his time to work with youth on disaster resilience and community development. In New Zealand he is a Hello Sunday Morning Ambassador, promoting sensible consumption of alcohol, and works closely with the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNIDSR) on building disaster resilience. Recently, Johnson was successful in getting Christchurch City Council to sign up to the UNISDR Making Cities Resilient Campaign.

Johnson was born in Ashburton and grew up on a farm in Mayfield. He was educated at Christ's College and the University of Canterbury.

In the days immediately following the September 4th Christchurch earthquake, while the university's Ilam campus was closed to enable the buildings to be checked for structural safety, 21-year-old 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.

Johnson met Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she toured Christchurch in 2010.

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.

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Wikipedia