How We Work

We tailor our activity to where it is needed the most. Our teams prioritise their care on where the need is greatest.

Apostleship of the Sea deploys its chaplains in Britain’s largest ports, each receiving tens of thousands of seafarers each year. Tilbury, Southampton, Felixstowe and Aberdeen are among the busiest. The majority of smaller British ports are also covered using our large network of volunteer ship visitors who work in port teams with their local port chaplain.

Each day that our chaplains and ship visitors climb a gangway they can meet any number of different situations.

Fair Freight

British consumers are increasingly aware of fair trade issues. The commercial sector is responding to consumer demand. Retailers are proud to claim that their goods have been ethically produced guaranteeing fair wages, decent working conditions and minimal environmental damage. However there is still little understanding of the conditions in which goods have been transported. In the debate on ethical consumption, the rights of seafarers rarely feature.

Apostleship of the Sea works with the International Labour Organisation and the International Transport Federation to promote corporate social responsibility, raising awareness of the issues of seafarers and advising how best to safeguard their rights.

Recognising and responding to the needs of seafarers is part of Apostleship of the Sea's pastoral care. Many seafarers suffer loneliness, far from home and cut off from their own culture, family and friends. Below two of our chaplains explain how, with a little imagination, they helped to fill the void on a prticular occasion. This is typical of hte way our chaplains work on a day to day basis.

Case Study
Recently, one of our ship visitors was making a regular call to a container ship. He had his laptop with him to offer the crew access to the internet. On this occasion a seafarer called Christian was able to access photographs of his newborn son, Carlos, at his home in the Philippines.Carlos was born after Christian had joined his ship for a nine month contract, so this opportunity to lay eyes on his son meant so much to him. It allowed him to reach out to his family and forged a close relationship with the Apostleship of the Sea ship visitor.

Case Study
Hasheba Mackenzie, pictured here, is typical of the seafarers that our port chaplains and ship visitors see on a daily basis. On this particular journey she had been away from home for seven months already with no contact with her family until she was visited onboard ship by Elfi, an Apostleship of the Sea volunteer ship visitor. Elfi enabled Hasheba to visit one of our centres where she was able to use the telephone and internet to communicate with her family.