Supporting the provision of quality welfare for seafarers and their dependants
Funded by the Merchant Navy fund this project addresses the issues of retired seafarers and sometimes their families' access to and knowledge of Information Technology. Working in partnership with Sir Gabriel Wood’s Mariners’ Home, Mariners’ Park and Care Ashore the Board has provided a combination of hardware (laptops and tablets), software (bespoke beginner’s operating system), limited Wi-Fi provision and training over a period of 18 months.
The Watch Ashore was the wives and partners organisation for the MN. Although primarily a social organisation the Watch Ashore was extremely keen to increase its membership in order to reach more potential members whose loved ones may have needed support when their loved ones were serving away at sea. To that end, with the financial support of the MN Fund and Seafarers UK, the Watch Ashore was working with MNWB on a collaborative project to attract new members by embracing social media, upgrading their website and becoming more involved with the voluntary welfare organisations. A small number of Watch Ashore members were issued with tablet computers and voluntarily attended a joint social media, IT and welfare ‘signposting’ course with more members following. The project aimed to provide the Watch Ashore with the tools and training to raise its profile and improve its outreach in order to increase its membership and continue to help the maritime charity sector by referring those who may need welfare support.
The Board maintains a bespoke database which captures data on all aspects of seafarers’ welfare provision across UK ports. The information was gathered by consultation at PWC meetings and enabled those providing port based welfare to review the level of welfare need against available resources at port level. The next stage of the project revolved around making the database both remotely updateable and available to the numerous port authorities, society head offices and port chaplains. To that end, MNWB made a successful grant application to the government, funded Knowledge Transfer Partnership and were working closely with Southampton Solent University to create an interactive, web based database that would make information readily available to the maritime community.
