Last April the Seafarers' House San Juan (SHSJ) participated in the International Committee on Seafarers' Welfare (ICSW) Annual General Meeting (AGM) held in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Over the past year, a group of members and consultants met to, amongst other things, go over th ereports from this years activities. The most important ones were the International Seafares Welfare Award, Year and Day of the Seafarer and the Twinning program which is an effort to recruit new members. The Twinning program is the most pertinent for Seafarers' House and as a result of this program, representatives from Seafarers' House will visit the Stella Marie Welfare Center in Venice, Italy to learn about their operations and likewise, representatives from the Italian center will come to San Juan to learn from our representatives there. The goal of this exchange is to learn from each other and create new ideas and strategies to handle the daily neds and requests from seafarers. Additionally, the Seafarers' House representatives will learn more about management of a center located within the port area such as in Venice and the Italian representatives will learn about management of a center located outside the port, like in San Juan.
The AGM also discussed a merge with sister organisation ISAN whiwh later has been approved and is currently being implemented. Implications of the 2006 Maritime Labour Convention were discussed and how this will shape new and current seafarers centers around the world and the possibility of using the MLC for certification of centers.
Finally, the winnter of the "Shipping Company of the Year" award, Bernhard Schulte Ship Management, presented a case study of good welfare practice onboard.
For more information, see http://www.seafarerswelfare.org.
