Mission to Seafarers Newcastle (MTS) provides a home away from home at the centre in Wickham, with many comforts to recharge a weary seafarer. MTS help them connect with friends and family, often seeing children for the first time over WiFi. The service offers access to medical attention, shopping, welfare needs and chaplaincy services, providing mental and spiritual care.

During the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, seafarers were unable to come ashore due to international boarder restrictions. It created a greater sense of isolation and disconnection from community, more than ever before.

To support seafarers, especially over Christmas and the holidays, MTS, Port Waratah, volunteers and Newcastle Port partners come together to deliver the Seafarers Christmas Donation Drive. This special initiative creates more than 2,000 gift bags each year, filled with donated goodies and Christmas well wishes. Port Waratah and their supply partners have previously provided donations of gloves, beanies, socks and treats, plus hands on packing to help MTS and the seafarers at this special time of year.

Local portside schools and employee children’s school communities were involved in the initiative, creating thousands of delightful handmade Christmas cards, letters and decorations. Christmas delivered!

Seafarers aboard the Genco Tiberius vessel that received the care packs wrote to MTS:

“Good Day, we received the gifts sent by you. It’s very heartwarming to receive those beanie caps. Also, the handwritten letters and a beautiful ship drawn. We have displayed it on the notice boards and the ship’s staff of Genco Tiberius would like to thank you for all the gifts. Thank you for thinking about us in this pandemic situation.”

During the pandemic MTS together with Port Waratah and Hunter New England Health worked together to facilitate seafarers to receive COVID-19 vaccinations while vessels are berthed at Port Waratah, a great health outcome for the seafaring community.

More recent partnerships with MTS include an upgrade to their conference room and technology to enable seafarers to have great access to virtually visit with family and friends, volunteers to undertake greater training and provides a new resource for local community groups to hire supporting the Mission. Port Waratah is proud of the long-standing relationship with the mission and has also provided funding in the last few years for a new bus, roof repairs and strategic planning opportunities.  Supporting the Mission is close to our hearts at Port Waratah.

Port Waratah also supports seafarers directly where we can. In 2019, we engineered a solution to provide seafarers with free Wi-Fi while at our berths and shared it around the world to help seafarers connect with their families more regularly from more places and combat feeling of isolation. We have operated this service ever since and upgraded the technology kits and casing to be more robust, reliable and longer lasting. We’ve shared this upgrade information with the global Seafarer Welfare Committee to further improve connectivity for seafarers around the world.

International Day of the Seafarer is held on June 25 each year, make sure to get Portside and give them a wave to show our appreciation for everything they do.