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Together, we can steer seafaring families towards hope
The festive season is often a time of hope and togetherness, filled with precious moments celebrated as a family. For many seafaring families, however, there will be an empty seat at the dinner table; it can be a time of heightened loneliness.
Which is why we need your help.
We know family and community are vital to a rich life and key components of protecting seafarers' wellbeing. With your help, we can minimize the seasonal stress and vulnerability. By donating today, you can ensure that families experiencing the darkest moments of their lives are met with compassion, care, and resources to look to the future.
Your donation means that we can deliver the gift of hope to seafarers and their families during the festive season and beyond. It contributes to providing essential assistance to seafarers’ families to pay for groceries, fuel bills, and treasured gifts for children to open on Christmas Day.
Grants made possible by you…
Thanks to your generous donations, we have distributed substantial grants to charities that provide direct assistance to many people who work – or have worked – at sea, and their families. Here are three heartwarming examples of how you have helped seafarers and their families during times of crisis:
- A £100,000 grant was awarded to the Naval Children’s Charity to provide financial and holistic support to Royal Navy families, children, and young people in crisis.
- A £44,000 grant was awarded to Mission to Seafarers to expand the SafeTalk programme by delivering suicide awareness and intervention training for seafarers, to combat the high rates of suicide across the maritime sector.
- A £34,000 grant was awarded to Relate to provide a range of relationship counselling services and a toolkit to promote healthy, happy relationships for seafarers.
Keep Seafarers’ families afloat with your generosity
Take Emma*, who was discharged from the Royal Navy after the stresses of the job impacted her mental health. After escaping an abusive relationship, she struggled to look after herself and her children. She couldn’t work and so faced financial and emotional woes. Emma felt that she couldn’t go on.
Emma received vital practical, emotional, and financial support from Louise, a Family Support Officer from one of our delivery partners, the Sailors' Children's Society. Without her help, Emma admits that she wouldn’t be alive today. On the days she couldn’t get out of bed, just hearing Louise knocking on the door and shouting through the letterbox let her know that someone cared.
"She is always there, my guardian angel. I will never be able to show how grateful I really am for all the ongoing support we receive.”
We fund vital counselling support for couples facing relationship breakdown, as well as a critical programme that delivers suicide awareness and intervention training, SafeTalk. In the last 18 months, 3,000 beneficiaries have received immediate assistance both portside and onboard through the training of 250 suicide alert helpers, made possible with your donations.
In addition to critical support for bereaved families of seafarers, we have also partnered with Commsave, one of the largest credit unions in the UK. Seafarers’ families have access to a range of financial services, providing them with a crucial safety net to catch them before they fall into hardship.
Thank you so much for everything you do to help families like Emma’s. Together, we can make this season a time of hope and new beginnings for seafarers and their families who need it the most.
Please donate today and Happy Holidays.
*Name changed for privacy reasons.
