Thanks to the full support of the Harbourmaster, the Ports of Venice and Chioggia will be joining the initiative promoted by the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) which together with the shipping industry world associations launched the campaign #ShoutOutForSeafarers to remind the world of the urgent need for all seafarers to be vaccinated. Indeed, the initiative takes place on the occasion of the “World Maritime Day”, which is celebrated every year by the International Maritime Organization -IMO-
In this way, next Friday 25 June at 12.00. (local time) vessels calling ports all around the world are invited to sound their horns.
Last year, the campaign drew the attention to the crisis due to the crew change. After one year the number of seafarers affected by the health restrictions requested by Governments to copy the pandemic has halved to 200,000.
However, due to new variants of the virus, mainly from India, many countries are facing the reintroduction of travel bans for seafarers. For this reason, it gets urgent to allow seafarers access to vaccines, considering that over half of the international maritime workforce comes from countries with limited stocks of vaccines.
At a national level the initiative is promoted among others, by the national Ship owners Association and National Ports Association.
In order to help spreading the news to the media, it is possible to shoot short videos – even with mobile phones – to be published on social networks, using the hashtags #ShoutOutForSeafarers, # FairFuture4Seafarers and #DayoftheSeafarer.