SE Asia Welfare Project Gets Green Light

SE Asia Welfare Project Gets Green Light

A major project aimed to dramatically enhance seafarers' welfare facilities across South East Asia was given the go ahead today in Singapore. Delegates at an International Committee on Seafarers' Welfare (ICSW) meeting which closes later today at the NTUC Conference Facility, Singapore, have just backed the programme, which will provide four years' worth of funding to examine, update and extend welfare provision.

Ninety-eight delegates representing 26 nationalities attended the meeting, which included a seminar, regional meeting, and ship visiting course.

One of the main points of the seminar was the focus on ship visiting. Capt Derrick Atkinson of BW Shipping in Singapore provided evidence that most seafarers have no contact at all with welfare workers, while two Burmese seafarers related their own, similar experiences.

The recent SIRC (Seafarers International Research Centre) report on port based welfare services also provided evidence to support this and delegates were challenged to try to change this on their return home by instituting a plan for coordinated ship visiting.

Representatives of ship owners, trade unions, religious organisations, port authorities and governments will now form a Regional Welfare Committee to initiate the programme.

The programme will be funded by the International Transport Workers' Federation Seafarers' Trust (subject to final approval) and monitored by the ICSW.

Bjørn Lødøen, ICSW Chairman, commented: "We have had a fantastic seminar, highlighted by unprecedented cooperation and friendship across all cultural, religious and professional divides, thus fulfilling the ICSW's mission to relieve the distress, suffering and need of seafarers irrespective of sex, race, colour or creed."

This new project mirrors successful regional programmes already carried out in Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America.

The ICSW would like to publicly thank the ITF Seafarers' Trust and The TK Foundation for their generous financial support for this meeting.

ENDS

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