The Sailors’ Society offers a wide spectrum of services, both to seafarers and their families – provision of welfare, pastoral support and counsel, spiritual support, and financial help when families are in dire need when a seafarer’s pay is withheld. A not uncommon occurrence!

Chaplains are trained and equipped to meet with relatives and to provide them with support and reassurance. This is especially the case where families and family relations are unimaginably strained when seafarers are held hostage as a result of piracy. This is when the agony of separation is at its most acute – the not knowing if their seafarer is alive or dead, the lack of hard information from reliable sources, the constant worry of how to cope alone.

We help to reduce the anxiety and distress caused by the family’s own isolation from their loved one, the separation of enormous distance and the frequent difficulty that relatives meet in realising regular communication, even in this age of the Internet and mobile text.

We offer unconditional friendship and impartial counselling and signposting to necessary outreach services.