“Mariners Welfare Guild” was launched at Chennai on World Maritime Day -the 21st of September 2010. The Guild essentially has been created to provide counsel, guidance and solace to seafarers and their families when provisions for their care in employment fail, by educating them on their rights and opportunities available to them. It will also serve as a nerve centre for counselling in times of distress and emergencies as also for co-ordinating Seafarer welfare activities. The need has arisen due to the limitations and failures of the systems and procedures that exist in International and National Shipping Conventions and Rules.
The Year 2010 has been declared as the Year of the Seafarer by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO). In the words of the Secretary–General of the IMO, Mr. Efthimios E. Mitropoulos, in today's global economy, hundreds of millions of people all over the world rely on ships to transport the great multitude of commodities, fuel, foodstuffs, goods and products on which we all depend. Global economy depends utterly on the Seafarers presence. Seafarers are, in effect, the lubricant without which the engine of trade would simply grind to a halt.
When we sit at the table to eat our daily bread, do we pause to think of who brought the grain that enabled our local baker to bake it? When faced with a severe winter, do we pause to think of who carried, from its sources afar, the oil that heats our homes or fuels the energy on which we all so much depend these days? Well, perhaps we should; and we certainly should recognize the importance of Seafarers.
Seafaring is a difficult and demanding job, with its own set of unique pressures and risks. Just the relentless drone of the diesels and the never–ending movement of the vessel that is not only the seafarers' place of work but also their home, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for weeks and often for months on end; and, ever–present in the back of their mind, the possibility of natural and other, invidious hazards such as pirate attacks, unwarranted detention and abandonment in foreign ports.
Mariners Welfare Guild will also provide succour to thousands of Seafarers across the world who finds themselves criminalised for conditions beyond their control. It is registered as a Society in Chennai and is to network services through voluntary counsels at all shipping locales in India and overseas.
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