Liverpool Seafarers Centre

Liverpool Seafarers Centre, which won the Positive Impact Award at the Mersey Maritime Industry Awards 2020 in March, helps 50,000 seafarers each year visiting Merseyside ports. It is a partnership between Apostleship of the Sea (Liverpool) and The Mersey Mission to Seafarers. In September 2019, LSC was awarded the world’s best seafarer centre at the International Seafarer Welfare Awards (ISWAN) as nominated and voted for by mariners themselves. The charity’s work involves visiting vessels to integrate with the crew, offering a listening ear to help combat isolation and loneliness and providing places ashore for seafarers to relax away from their working environment.

 

  •  LSC is funded by donations from the churches, as well as general donations and a new port levy on shipping lines.
  •  LSC is headquartered at Colonsay House in Crosby and opened a new centre in Eastham on Wirral opened in 2017.
  • Corporate supporters of LSC include:  Essar’s Stanlow oil refinery in Ellesmere Port, Peel Ports, the Merchant Navy Welfare Board, the Mersey River Pilots, Mersey Maritime, Polaris Media Management, the Voluntary Aid Club and The Phoebe Wortley Charitable Trust.

 

Commenting on their membership, John Wilson, chief executive of Liverpool Seafarers Centre, said:

“We are delighted to have been named a member of the UK Chamber of Shipping. It is an honour to be deemed worthy to join this professional organisation, which will inevitably endorse and give recognition of our work on the maritime stage and will strengthen our mission to have a positive impact on the lives of seafarers.

“Liverpool Seafarers Centre gives a voice to the thousands of people who make their living from the sea, whether through campaigning on international issues on their behalf or assisting them on a local level with anything from advice on employment relationships to providing a listening ear on board ships and when they visit our centres in the Liverpool area.

“This year, more than ever, seafarers need our help due to the dire situation they have been left in by COVID-19 travel restrictions, with hundreds of thousands left stranded at sea and many others stuck at home unable to get to ships to begin their contracts. We have campaigned throughout the pandemic for seafarers to be classed as key workers to assist their journeys back home and expressed our fears for the mental health of those trapped on vessels, with some we have met reaching more than 400 days at sea.

“We look forward to working with the Chamber to further our aims for those we represent.”    

Contact

John Wilson

CEO Liverpool Seafarers Centre

john.wilson@liverpoolseafarerscentre.org