How Lydia Mar Manila Supports Filipino Seafarer Welfare and Mental Health Day of the Seafarer 2026
Seafarers carry world trade, and they also carry the risks—as explained in this year’s theme for Day of the Seafarer. Here are a few things we do at LMM to make sure you don’t carry the risks alone.
Before you board, we take serious steps to inform you of your rights.
During our briefings, we discuss with seafarers the Emergency Contact Card that we hand out. It has our contact details, your principal’s information, and the confidential 24/7 helplines of ISWAN and the Mission to Seafarers. But more than these numbers — the card also tells you your legal right to air out grievances, with a guarantee that you are protected against forms of backlash, like victimization or retribution, just because you made a complaint. We tell you that you have a right to air out your concerns not just to the ship’s command, but even to us here in the Philippines, or your union. Because when something goes wrong, you shouldn’t have to wonder if it’s ok to speak up. We want you to know that it is.
Our door is open — and we mean it.
Lydia Mar Manila has an open-door policy, which means rank doesn’t determine who gets to speak to our staff and our managers. All seafarers are welcome to talk to anyone in our team. But a policy on paper only works if the culture behind it is real. That’s why we work on building trust within our team and with our crew, so that when something goes wrong or if there’s something you need to get off your chest—you will feel safe talking to us about it.
And when you sign off, we still want to hear from you.
Our Disembarkation Form and Welfare Review is a confidential space for you to tell us what was really happening onboard —rest hours, safety concerns, living conditions, anything, really. In case you didn’t have the chance to talk about these things while at sea, this form brings that opportunity back. You can also tell us about how you felt about our services, from deployment to disembarkation. We take all feedback seriously. We investigate, we follow up, and we push our principals and ourselves to make real changes.
True crew welfare isn’t a once-a-year post or some celebration in June. It’s making sure that while you carry world trade and brave the risks, you never have to carry them alone.