From: Deb Parker – CCC Communication Team
MEDIA RELEASE 3 July 2008
Survey shows students feel safe living in Christchurch
A survey of international students’ perception of how they can seek help against harassment has shown the large majority
feel safe living in Christchurch
Survey touch-screens were put in place for two weeks each at the University of Canterbury (UC) and Christchurch
Polytechnic Institute of Technology (CPIT) during May and June.
The onscreen questionnaire was answered by 260 students. Despite around half of the respondents saying they had
experienced having hurtful things said to them because of their ethnicity, 86 per cent said they felt safe living in
Christchurch.
The project is part of an ongoing Welcome to Christchurch joint initiative by the Christchurch City Council, UC, CPIT,
Ngai Tahu, the Police and the Human Rights Commission.
Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker said the survey showed Christchurch was not the racist city it was often portrayed as.
“We are not unusual in that we are still learning to embrace the different ethnicities that we have, but I think the
great majority of Christchurch and Canterbury people understand and appreciate what different cultures bring to the city
and the province.
“It’s always those vocal few who will hassle our newcomers, but thankfully in the long term scheme of things our new
residents understand this is a pretty good place to live.
“What we as residents have to do is sort out those vocal few with the mindless prejudice, and say to them that their
attitudes are not acceptable.”
Mr Parker said that as someone who, by virtue of his job, “cops a bit of mindless harassment from time to time” he could
sympathise with international students who also occasionally met with that form of ignorant behaviour.
“The vast majority of our City residents value and care about overseas students having a safe and enjoyable time in
Christchurch. They are welcome friends, and will meet many good people here," he said.
Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres welcomed the survey and said the results were encouraging.
In a breakdown of figures, 92 of the respondents were from UC and 168 from CPIT. Most, on both campuses, were in the
21-25 age group, with considerably more males than females taking part at UC, whereas gender balance in respondents was
more equal at CPIT. The most common nationalities were Chinese, South and North Koreans, Japanese, Taiwanese and Saudi
Arabians.
Statistical results were very similar for both institutions. About half the respondents said they had experienced
harassment. About half also said they had seen others harassed.
Barriers to making a complaint were mainly not knowing who to tell and not being confident in the English language.
There was also some concern that Police would not act on complaints. Family and friends were by far the most likely to
be confided in.
Other reasons given for cases not being reported included the incident being regarded as trivial, that this kind of
thing seemed to happen often, and concern that complaining could make things worse.
The Welcome to Christchurch project started with a poster campaign rolled out in February at UC and CPIT depicting
students of various ethnicities carrying out a hongi, with the word welcome in different languages. The touch-screen
survey found the campaign had been highly visible with around 76% of respondents saying they had seen the posters.
The poster campaign will be re-launched at the end of the month with posters using new images, but using the same theme.
ends