Founded | 1981 |
---|---|
Type | Charity |
Registration no. | 281936 |
Headquarters | ITF House, 49-60 Borough Road, London, SE1 1DR |
Location |
|
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Dave Heindel, SIU, Chair of Trustees Katie Higginbottom, Head of the ITF Seafarers' Trust |
Staff | 5 |
Website | http://www.seafarerstrust.org |
The ITF Seafarers' Trust is a charitable maritime trust located in London, United Kingdom. It was established in 1981 by the Executive Board of the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), a global federation of transport workers' unions with over 4.6 million worker members. The stated mission of the Trust is to assist with "the moral, spiritual and physical welfare of seafarers regardless of nationality, race or creed." [1]
The Trust receives funds from both the Trust's own capital funds and by the investment income of the ITF Seafarers' International Assistance, Welfare and Protection Fund, more commonly known as the "Welfare Fund". That fund is used to provide a wide range of trade union services to seafarers. The Trust is limited to supporting projects which directly benefit individual seafarers' spiritual, moral or physical welfare.
The ITF Seafarers' Trust was established by the ITF Executive Board in 1981 as a body with charitable status under UK law. [1] The Trust financially supports organisations that directly provide welfare services to seafarers, acting as a lobbyist for change in the maritime community, and support long-term programmes that improve maritime workers’ health and welfare. [2] Its funding comes from the investment income of the ITF Seafarers' International Welfare Assistance and Protection Fund and from capital funds held by the Trust itself.
Since its launch in 1981, the Trust has provided some US$200m to support seafarers' welfare around the world.
One of the Trust’s main areas of funding is providing seafarers’ centres/ships visitors with the means of transporting themselves and seafarers to and from ships by granting service providers funds to purchase appropriate vehicles. The Trust has provided over £2.5 million for this purpose over the last 34 years. [3]
Total grants awarded in 2015 totalled £1,988,062.00. The majority of grants were awarded to projects relating to operational support for maritime charities as well as vehicle purchase and replacement programmes.
During 2021, the Trust’s income was £1,263,859 (including almost £1m in donations), while their expenditure was £5,629,898, including 1.1% spent on fundraising. [4]
The Seafarers' Trust is governed by a Board of Trustees, that are responsible for setting the Trust’s strategy, ensuring it fulfils its objectives, and that good governance is carried out. The Head of Trust is responsible for the daily operation of the Trust and is assisted by a full-time secretariat who undertake various administrative, project and programme management activities.
The Trust Deed makes provision for a minimum of five Trustees and a maximum of nine. At present there are six Trustees: [5]
Katie Higginbottom, [6] serves as the Head of the ITF Seafarers' Trust.
MPHRP is a programme to help seafarers and families cope with the trauma caused by torture and abuse during incidents of maritime piracy, funded by the ITF Seafarers' Trust and run by The International Seafarers' Welfare and Assistance Network. [7]
The Seafarers Emergency Fund (SEF) has been set up by both The TK Foundation and the ITF Seafarers' Trust, administered by ISWAN. The Fund provides aid to seafarers and families of seafarers, who are directly involved in sudden and unforeseen crises. [8] This Fund is available to seafarer welfare organizations and other welfare organizations to provide the means to purchase goods and/or services for seafarers and/or the spouse or children of seafarers to relieve the need(s) brought on in relation with a sudden and unforeseen crisis. [9]
Shore Leave is an offline smartphone app that allows seafarers to contact the nearest seafarers’ centre for assistance or the SeafarerHelp assistance service for more serious issues. [10]
Seafarer's Rights International (SRI) is an independent centre dedicated to advancing the rights of seafarers through research, education and training in issues concerning seafarers and the law. SRI aims to promote, implement, enforce, and advance all seafarers’ and fishers’ rights and remedies, including human rights and the rights of other persons on board vessels. [11] The ITF Seafarers’ Trust are the sole funders of Seafarers’ Rights International (SRI).
The Trust supports up to five students per year to study at the World Maritime University in Sweden, mainly in the areas of Law and the Humanities. [12]
Hosted by the International Seafarers' Welfare and Assistance Network (ISWAN) and supported by the Seafarers’ Trust, SeafarerHelp is a 24/7, 365 days per year assistance service available to seafarers. SeafarerHelp is a help and advice service for problems relating to life aboard the ship or concerns about health. [13]
The Trust partners with ICMA and NAMMA for several programmes around the world, including providing data SIM cards and Christmas care packages during Covid-19 and publishing a book, Out of Sight, Not Out of Mind: 40 Portraits of Seafarers by Seafarers. [14] ICMA and NAMMA are both Christian associations which represent the great majority of seafarers’ centres around the world.
Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifically to social insurance programs which provide support only to those who have previously contributed, as opposed to social assistance programs which provide support on the basis of need alone. The International Labour Organization defines social security as covering support for those in old age, support for the maintenance of children, medical treatment, parental and sick leave, unemployment and disability benefits, and support for sufferers of occupational injury.
The Community Chest of Hong Kong is an independent, nonprofit organization established on 8 November 1968 in Hong Kong. The Community Chest serves as an umbrella organization to provide grants to a wide range of community projects.
The Mission to Seafarers is a Christian welfare charity serving merchant crews around the world. It operates through a global Mission 'family' network of chaplains, staff and volunteers and provides practical, emotional and spiritual support through ship visits, drop-in seafarers centres and a range of welfare and emergency support services.
The Myanmar Maritime Trade Unions Federation, formerly known as Seafarers Union of Burma (SUB) is a trade union in Myanmar. It represents an estimated 20,000-30,000 workers in the international shipping industry, many of whom work on Flag of Convenience ships and suffer from poor work and pay conditions.
Stella Maris is an international agency of the Catholic Church that provides pastoral care to seafarers, other maritime workers, and their families.
The International Christian Maritime Association (ICMA) is an ecumenical association of 26 Christian organisations, Protestant and Catholic, representing different churches and Christian communities actively engaged in welfare work for people who work at sea, including seafarers, fishers and the families of both. The Association is registered as a charity in the UK and, through its members, operates internationally.
The East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme (SAP) is an independent organization for the welfare of seafarers and a piracy-monitoring group. The organisation was founded in 1996 to assist captured and other seafarers in need and to track, report the actions and effects of pirates off the coast of Africa, specifically, in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Somalia and Kenya where piracy has traditionally been a major problem. The current head of the group is Andrew Mwangura.
Sailors’ Society is an international Christian charity working in ports across the world. The organisation has chaplains and ship visitors in 91 global ports, who help seafarers and their families, from all faiths and none, with welfare and practical support.
The Seafarers' Charity is the leading grant-making charity that has been helping people in the maritime community for over 105 years, by providing vital funding to support seafarers in need and their families. The charity supports organisations and projects that make a real difference to people's lives across the Merchant Navy, Fishing Fleets, Royal Navy and Royal Marines.
The Seamen's Church Institute is an American organization that serves mariners through education, pastoral care, and legal advocacy. Founded in lower Manhattan in 1834, it is affiliated with the Episcopal Church. With a budget of over $7 million, SCI is the largest, most comprehensive mariners’ agency in North America. The institute is headquartered in New York City and operates a seafarers’ center in Port Newark, and maritime education facilities in Paducah, Kentucky, and Houston, Texas.
The Maritime Labour Convention (MLC) is an International Labour Organization (ILO) convention, number 186, established in 2006 as the fourth pillar of international maritime law and embodies "all up-to-date standards of existing international maritime labour Conventions and Recommendations, as well as the fundamental principles to be found in other international labour Conventions". The other pillars are the SOLAS, STCW and MARPOL. The treaties applies to all ships entering the harbours of parties to the treaty (port states), as well as to all ships flying the flag of state party (flag states, as of 2021: over 91 per cent).
Padraig "Paddy" Crumlin is an Australian trade unionist. In addition to his leadership of the Maritime Union of Australia since 2000, he has been the President of the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) since 2010 and the International President of the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union since that union was established in 2018.
The Merchant Navy Welfare Board is a registered charity located in Southampton, England, that acts as the welfare umbrella for the United Kingdom Merchant Navy and fishing fleet charity sector. Its mission statement is "Supporting the provision of quality welfare services for seafarers and their dependants."
Stephen Cotton is the general secretary of the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) – a global union federation of 677 trade unions representing 19.7 million workers in 149 countries in the seafaring, port, road, rail, tourism and aviation sectors. He was elected to the position at the 43rd ITF Congress held in Sofia, Bulgaria in 2014 and reelected at the 44th ITF Congress held in Singapore in 2018.
The International Seafarers' Welfare and Assistance Network (ISWAN) is an international NGO and UK registered charity that aims to assists seafarers and their families. ISWAN is the result of a merger between two organisations. These were the International Committee on Seafarers' Welfare (ICSW) and the International Seafarers Assistance Network (ISAN). ICSW was formed in 1973 and ISAN was established in the late 1990s. These two welfare bodies merged in April 2013 to form ISWAN. ISWAN's headquarters are in Croydon, Greater London.
Rob Johnston is the assistant general secretary of the International Transport Workers’ Federation - a global union federation of trade unions in the seafaring, port, road, rail, tourism and aviation industries.
Duckdalben – International Seamen's Club is the name of the seamen's club founded in 1986 in the Port of Hamburg by the Deutsche Seemannsmission Hamburg-Harburg e. V. Every year, around 35,000 seafarers from more than 100 countries are offered practical help and orientation in what is for them a foreign port. Duckdalben is named after the mooring pilings called Dalben. In 2011 it was named the world's best seamen's club.
ITF Enhancing Human Security is a humanitarian, non-profit organization founded by the Republic of Slovenia., which specializes in land mine clearance and post-conflict reconstruction. It was established on 12 March 1998 with the purpose of helping Bosnia and Herzegovina in its post-conflict rehabilitation, specifically with mine clearance and assistance to mine victims.
The North American Maritime Ministry Association (NAMMA) is an ecumenical Christian seafarers’ welfare organization and professional association for seafarers’ welfare workers.