Dockside facilities
 Traditionally
Stella Maris Centres offered affordable accommodation to
visiting seafarers. Many centres around the world still do.
However, the pressure to move ships in and out of port as
quickly as possible means that some seafarers have very
little time ashore. So if the seafarers cannot come to the
Stella Maris Centre, the Centre must go to the seafarers.
The Apostleship of the Sea uses temporary buildings, caravans, even disused
containers in the docks themselves in order to provide
information and access to telephones or internet. These
facilities enable seafarers to communicate with their
families even if their time in port is extremely limited.
Facilities are often accessible 24 hours a day.
In some Ports where there is restricted movement due to
safety, the Stella Maris Seafarers' Centre will arrange for
mobile phones to be left on a ship with the captain or a
senior officer. This allows seafarers access to a telephone.
Then, using phone cards, seafarers can call family &
friends.
Photograph: This seafarer is phoning his family from
"Room 101" in Sheerness, England. Communications facilities
are available to seafarers in an otherwise disused port
building accessible by a digital lock. Port chaplains and
pastoral workers circulate the code among seafarers and port
personnel. |