A Look Back at the Goals Seafarers’ House San Juan Achieved in 2021

Seafarers’ House takes a look back at the previous year to look at the goals we managed to achieve during the course of the year. The year was a trying time for everyone, but we were able to have a bit of a return to normalcy.

At the start of the year, we managed to launch the Seafarers’ House San Juan Blog (seafarerspr.org), with the hopes to use this new platform to better communicate with seafarers and keep  them up to date with the latest news and information on the industry, Seafarers’ House, and Puerto Rico.

During the year, we also visited many cargo ships docked on the island to assist the ITF in vaccinating seafarers against the Coronavirus. We handed out small gifts and pain medication during their vaccinations, as well as gave them information about our center in case they ever wish to visit us and use our services.

We also freely provided those seafarers in the cargo ships who were unable to go outside the service of buying first need items and equipment and delivered it to them.

We were also very happy to reopen the doors to our center, and in the latter months of the year, finally welcomed back seafarers to San Juan! During the months of September thru December for example, we received 457 seafarer visits. Although, due to the pandemic, the center was working at limited capacity, we managed to offer many services to the visiting seafarers in the attempt to make them feel at home.

Among the services we were able to provide again for seafarers was our package services. Especially to those seafarers that were docked, but unable to leave their ships. To those, we managed to deliver their packages at the San Juan port.

And finally, we had our first ship visit after almost two years. We visited the cruise ship, Seabourn Ovation, to provide our Union services to them and to give the seafarers information regarding our center in Old San Juan.

Here is hoping that for this new year, we can achieve many more goals. Seafarers’ House San Juan will carry on in making sure that this goal becomes a reality. Happy 2022 from Seafarers’ House San Juan!