Providing a personal lifeline
Supporting seafarers and their families at home, in port and at sea
Our mission is to meet the practical, emotional and spiritual needs of seafarers and their families.
Chaplaincy is at the core of our global work. We have more than 100 chaplains and ship visitors, who reach 1,000 seafarers every day on board ships or in seafarer centres. They often don’t have internet access on board, so we give them free Wi-Fi to call home as well as lifts to the doctor or shops, welfare support and a listening ear.
Over the past few years, we have expanded our horizons, developing programmes that support seafarers at home, their families and seafaring communities in need around the world.
Wellness
Our innovative Wellness at Sea coaching programme, E-learning platform and free app help seafarers stay physically and mentally fit for the pressures they face every day. The programme also helps maritime companies achieve the best performance from their crews by maintaining high levels of welfare. We provide training both in class and online, working in partnership with companies and colleges.
8,000 seafarers trained
Five languages in class
Crisis
Our 24-7 Crisis Response Network of specially trained chaplains provides a rapid response trauma care and counselling service for survivors of piracy attacks, natural disasters and other crises at sea. Our chaplains and family support officers also care for seafarers’ families when crisis hits, offering emergency grants and helping them cope with the trauma of a loved one’s injury, imprisonment or death.
Communities
We also work in seafaring communities around the world, providing grants and running projects to meet local needs: from healthcare for retired seafarers in India to water and sanitation projects in Bangladesh and Myanmar. In the Philippines, home to nearly one-third of the world’s seafarers, we’ve built homes, medical centres and other facilities for communities devastated by Typhoon Haiyan.
The Seaman Guard Ohio story - our crisis team in action
Schools
From improving school facilities to helping raise up the next generation of seafarers, we support schools in seafaring communities that need us. We’ve built classrooms and school boats to stop children from having to swim to school in the Philippines, run clubs to give seafarers’ children skills and confidence to improve their futures and funded a primary school in a deprived port town in Ghana. We've provided school equipment including:
50 Computers
45 bikes
Maritime Education
We invest in the future of global seafaring by providing training for young people who would be unable to pursue a career at sea without financial support. We provide total funding for a select number of maritime scholarships in Singapore, Poland, Greece and the Philippines, as well as offering grants to maritime students in a number of countries around the world. Last year we awarded:
22 maritime scholarships
29 nautical training grants
Technology
We're always looking for ways to improve our service and provide the best care for seafarers. That's why we have developed a growing suite of apps, which have attracted huge interest in the industry and charitable sectors.
Our ground-breaking ICMA Ship Visitor app allows chaplains to report and share data in real time, providing continuity of care around the world. The app has been made available to all members of the International Christian Maritime Association, revolutionising the way in which chaplaincy services are delivered. Find out more at www.shipvisitor.org.
Our Wellness at Sea app compliments our award-winning Wellness at Sea programme by putting physical, mental, emotional and spiritual welfare in each seafarer’s hands and connecting them to valuable support networks.
“My cadetship has been the best experience of my life and I would like to thank Sailors’ Society for their financial support and enabling me to start what I hope will be a long and rewarding career.”
Rachel Vassallo, cadet, UK
"Pauline [Sailors' Society's chaplain in Leith] helps us every day. She asks what we need and has been so much help to us."
Captain Gennadi Kukvinov, stranded with his crew in the port of Leith without pay
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