ILO addresses psychosocial problems of seafarers

Due to a growing concern on the psychosocial issues affecting seafarers like violence, drugs and alcohol, tobacco, stress and HIV/AIDS, the International Labor Organization (ILO) has tapped the state-run National Maritime Polytechnic (NMP) to carry out a short course dealing with the prevention and management of the problems.

NMP executive director Noriel Devanadera, the leading facilitator of the ILO project in the Philippines, said shipping is a high-risk sector because of its mobility and the type of work it involves. He said these factors which are interrelated have been responsible for accidents, diseases and disabilities in ships.

ILO and NMP officials recently held an appreciation seminar in which ship managers and crewing agents were briefed on the cost of psychosocial hazards and their interrelationships, including the solutions.

ILO Manila director Werner Konrad Blenk said the agency is making the Philippines a priority in its policy on maritime incidences of psychosocial problems by directly linking health and safety issues with measures to tackle those problems on board.

Blenk said the program is barely two years in its implementation mainly in land-based industries, and the Philippines will be the first country to implement the course in the maritime sector. Though the ILO cannot prescribe it obligingly, the agency wants to respond to the issue being a "demand driven" program, Blenk added.

The program, called "SOLVE for Managing Directors," is designed to allow an organization or enterprise to integrate psychosocial issues for preventive action.

The SOLVE module offered by the ILO provides an introduction to the issues and the costs at stake since the workshop is participative, informative and action-oriented. The course provides senior managers with the necessary tools to begin a change in policy and attitudes to improve economic sustainability of their company or organization.

Meanwhile, the NMP has forged an agreement with the Philippine Merchant Marine Academy (PMMA) to jointly conduct training courses to maximize government resources for Filipino seafarers.

Under the agreement the NMP, a training institution based in Tacloban, will use the facilities of the PMMA campus in Zambales for serveral of its upgrading courses.

Devanadera said the move aims to provide greater access to its Luzon-based seafarers wanting to avail themselves of the polytechnic’s competitive and quality training.

He said the facilities of NMP and PMMA, which are both government-owned, have not been fully tapped for the development of maritime manpower resources. NMP is inaccessible and inconvenient to Luzon or Metro Manila-based trainees, while the PMMA as a maritime school does not have training programs for seafarers.

At the same time, the joint training program will give PMMA cadets the benefit from simulator-based familiarization course, which NMP training program offers.