25 June marks the annual Day of the Seafarer, a celebration designated by the International
Maritime Organisation (IMO) to recognise the unique contribution made by seafarers from all
over the world to international seaborne trade, the world economy and civil society as a
whole.
Seafarers do indeed matter to Singapore. We have a significant group of Singaporean
seafarers under our care coming out of SMA and WMI. There are also about more than 1,000
ships, with thousands of seafarers working on board, visiting the Port of Singapore at any one
time to bring us nearly everything we eat, wear and work with. Lastly, there are a great
number of seafarers on some 4,500 Singapore-flagged ships who spend a large portion of the
year away from home traversing the high seas to make a living and keep global seaborne
trade flowing.
For 2018, the focus of the Day of the Seafarer campaign will address seafarers' well-being,
particularly mental health, with the themes of "SupportSeafarersWellbeing" and
"GoodDayatSea". More information about the IMO's campaign can be found here:
http://
www.imo.org/en/About/Events/dayoftheseafarer/Pages/Day-of-the-Seafarer-2018.aspx .
MPA, together with our partners in seafarers' welfare, will be organising a gift hamper
distribution during the last week of June 2018 to celebrate the Day of the Seafarer. About 600
hampers with gift items will be distributed to the crew on board ships visiting the Port of
Singapore as a token of Singapore's appreciation to the contributions of seafarers to Maritime
Singapore.
We also invite your good organisation to consider hosting and organising more events and
campaigns in the month of June to celebrate the Day of the Seafarer and raise awareness
about seafaring as a career. We are hoping to have as many organisations to do events/
campaigns in June - in conjunction with the Day of the Seafarer to raise awareness about
seafaring to the general public, as well as to express our appreciation to seafarers.
We invite you to consider this and do share with us if your organisation intends to plan for
anything in June. You may direct any queries or feedback to
Mun_Wei-Jun@mpa.gov.sg.
