Durban - A crisis response centre to provide counselling and aid to seafarers who have been the victims of pirate attacks and other trauma in sub-Saharan Africa waters was officially launched on Wednesday.
The centre, a project of the Sailors’ Society, has trained port chaplains who provide 24-hour assistance to seafarers in South Africa, Ghana, Madagascar, Mozambique and Reunion.
It is headed by Reverend Johan van Schalkwyk, who is also the chef executive of the Sailors Society of Southern Africa.
He said seafarers were often away at sea for many months and faced many difficulties, including loneliness and isolation.
Some had even been held hostage by pirates for almost three years.
“We are trying to help them before they go home,” Van Schalkwyk said.
He said it was important to help them before they went home, because their families sometimes lacked the skills to assist them in dealing with the trauma.
“When you start working with them, you start working with a broken person,” he said.
He said the crisis response centre would try to give victims hope and help them reintegrate into their families.
The centre has 18 chaplains to assist people across sub-Saharan Africa. There were also other chaplains on call.
Changing the culture and stigma of seafarers as a “rough and tough” people who were not in touch with their emotions was another area of focus for the society, which also launched a wellness programme on Wednesday.
It will be taught at maritime schools, with a focus on the well-being of individuals.
Programme founder Johan Smith said he realised there was a need for the programme in the maritime industry and developed it with the assistance of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology and other organisations.
Smith, a former port chaplain, said the need for the programme was underscored by research which had found that seafarers had the second highest suicide rate in the world - after coal miners.
And, according to International Transport Federation research, 66 percent of seafarers knew someone who suffered from depression.
He said shipping companies had embraced the project.
Smith, who is from Cape Town, said he hoped the programme would be a “game changer,” as currently there was a “slow culture of change happening in the maritime industry.”
He said the programme had already been launched in South East Asia, where many of the world’s sailors come from.
The programme focuses on physical, emotional, social, intellectual and spiritual wellness.
“It tries to look at seafarers in holistic way... There is a lot more to seafaring than technical aspects,” Smith said.
He said the programme would be rolled out at the Durban University of Technology in the next few months.
Daily News