Supporting UK Merchant Navy seafarers and their families

In 2023, we have awarded the following grants to date:

• £15,000 to Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariner's Royal Benevolent Society for the provision of a top-up fund to support emergency grants to merchant seafarers and their dependents in real poverty but who do not fit within the charity's eligibility criteria of 10 years of service at sea.
  

In 2022, the Fund awarded a total of £69,020 to five organisations:

• £27,000 to Age UK to continue to provide and sustain Seafarers Group Telephone Friendship calls which reduce loneliness and isolation, improve wellbeing, and provide older seafarers with the opportunity to link up with others from their communities.
• £25,000 to Sailors' Children's Society to support children and young people from Merchant Navy families on low incomes to help with essentials such as school uniforms, winter clothes, educational equipment and more.
• £13,200 to Age UK Wirral to support the wellbeing of residents at Mariners Park, Wallasey through assisting older resident seafarers to utilise IT to maintain connections with family and friends.
• £2,220 to South Atlantic Medal Association 1982 to partially fund a weekend commemorating the 40-year anniversary of the Falklands conflict in June 2022.
• £1,600 to Not Forgotten Association to provide entertainment and recreational events and activities for the seafaring community to combat isolation and loneliness among veterans by bringing them together to provide peer support.