Mascarona. Foundation for Seafarers was created to provide well-being to Chilean and foreign crew members
The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the maritime industry, beyond the numbers, was felt especially in the human part by seafarers who experienced serious difficulties in returning to their homes after long periods of service on board, due to the sanitary restrictions imposed in various countries around the world that prevented them from going ashore and also due to the cancellation of passenger air routes. In the midst of the crisis, the IMO made repeated calls with mixed success to qualify the crew members as essential workers and thus facilitate their reunion with their loved ones. Raquel Meza, CEO of South Pacific Seafares Chile and partner of WISTA Chile, through her 14 years of experience in the sector, began to have a deep concern for the working conditions of the world’s merchant seafarers, which led her to germinate the idea of creating an institution that would recognize the importance of this work and provide support to those who carry it out. This concept was taking consistency and finally this Friday, December 16, the official opening of “Mascarona. Foundation for Seafarers”, an act that took place at the Valparaíso Naval Club with the presence of authorities and various actors from the maritime and port sector.
The Foundation’s mission is to provide shelter, support and well-being to all seafarers, provide them with tools, resources and real opportunities and optimize the performance of crew members on board; In the words of Raquel Meza, founder and director of the Foundation, its main function is “to take care of our essential resource, the seafarers.”
The foregoing is revealed in a place arranged by the Foundation in the Los Héroes building in Valparaíso, where crew members who have any requirements may be attended to. “It is ready to serve all our seafarers, both Chilean and foreign, from Monday [December 19], who will have a friendly space for conversation where we can listen to their needs. We will be there waiting for you,” she said.
As she explains, the pandemic made visible the difficulties that the crew members are experiencing and that, considering the important work they carry out, it is a duty to support them from the ground, whether it is “working on their well-being, giving them tools, a resting place, a friendly place, waiting for them when they arrive from their navigation and sharing with them, mainly from the human point of view. That is my main motivation,” she said.
Raquel Meza also highlighted that both shipowners and the maritime authority have given “absolute support” to the initiative and that, along with valuing it, they have also provided ideas as to where the Foundation should aim. “I think the reception has been extremely good, in fact, I thought it was going to be a little more difficult and it wasn’t,” she said.
The Foundation seeks to address the real problems that affect the maritime industry and seafarers, and one of them is the lack of people interested in working as merchant mariners, a subject in which the Foundation has set its first challenge. “There is always talk about the deficit and the difficulty we have in finding crew members. Worldwide, the numbers are extremely complex. So our challenge is to work on it through the reinsertion of seafarers,” she said.
To this end, the Foundation already has a “star project” that is already completed after six months of preparation. In this regard, Raquel Meza details that “we plan to present it to the State through public entities such as Corfo, Sence, the Maritime Authority and businessmen who can support us for the reinsertion work because it is a high-cost issue. Seafarers are not considered a vulnerable population, they are not within the financing lines of the current government or of any. We want to show that seafarers are indeed essential in our lives and that is why we should worry about that”.
For his part, the Maritime Governor of Valparaíso, Captain Daniel González, stressed that “this Foundation comes to reaffirm the values and meaning that the MLC Agreement [on maritime work] had at some point, which sought to improve the quality of life and the labor relations of the crew members embarked on both national and foreign ships. As the director put it, the Foundation comes to humanize the work on board”.
Regarding the way in which the Chilean Navy will collaborate with this initiative, he indicated that “we have a very close relationship with the personnel on board through examination, recognition of their special conditions, of their abilities. So, this comes to link us in a better way and we will also participate in all the requirements that the Foundation has, those that we know will be generated from this increase in concerns, since the objective is, precisely, to unite all the doubts of the staff shipped across the country.”
Lastly, Alejandra Canales, president of WISTA Chile, who spoke at the Foundation’s inauguration ceremony, highlighted “that an initiative like this is born from a woman, in such a masculine industry, and that Raquel has realized this need of giving support and accompaniment to the crews is highly valued”. He added that “Raquel is not only a member of WISTA Chile, but she is already a friend, we know the impetus she has and we know that her initiatives are going to be carried out. We are sure that he will be successful in this Foundation”, she commented.