The fleet of Indonesia’s largest company follows the Government of Indonesia in signing an agreement with the ITF.
Indonesian state-owned oil company fleet, Pertamina International Shipping, is partnering with the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and Indonesian seafarers’ union and ITF affiliate, Kesatuan Pelaut Indonesia (KPI), to bring mental health training and services to its crew members.
Under an agreement signed this month in Indonesia, Pertamina, the ITF and KPI agree to provide multiple trainings and emergency outreach services related to seafarers’ mental wellbeing over the next three years.
The memorandum of understanding (MoU) follows a similar agreement struck between the Government of Indonesia, the ITF and KPI in September last year, which the ITF’s Global Wellbeing Programme Coordinator, Dr Syed Asif Altaf, called “hugely significant”: under the 2024 agreement, seafarers’ mental health education is now mandatory in the country’s maritime academies.
KPI General Secretary, I Dewa Nyoman Budiasa, explained that the agreement is a shining example of KPI’s Welfare Programme engaging with industry to protect its members.
“Our Congress wants action on mental health. Our partners in both the industry and the government want action on mental health. So, we are proud to see Pertamina International Shipping set the example nationally for what a positive collaboration can be,” he said.
“Today is the start of a series of training sessions and the development of an outreach network. We need to be able to educate, but also to respond to our members in their time of need and support them however we can.”
The ITF-Pertamina MoU also builds on an agreement on mental health and stress management training, signed last week between the ITF and the Government of the Philippines. While the Philippines ranks as the world’s largest supplier of ratings and officers, Indonesia is also one of the world’s main providers of seafarers, ranking third in terms of ratings and fifth in terms of officers.
Muhammad Irfan, Director of Fleet Management for Pertamina International Shipping, hailed the signing and initial seminar as a positive step forward.
“Today is a special day,” he said after the signing. “Together with the ITF and the Indonesian Seafarers’ Union, we signed a memorandum of understanding on how we will engage more closely with Pertamina International Shipping’s seafarers on mental health and mental wellbeing.”
“We will have a program to build a healthy mentality. A healthy mentality and healthy crew will support the business sustainability of Pertamina International Shipping into the future.”
The MOU signing was immediately followed by a two-day ‘First Responder and Peer Educator’ training seminar in Jakarta for a group of Pertamina’s top officers and engineers.
Captain Steven, a senior master with Pertamina, said he did not know what to expect from the two-day training, which covered topics including the effects of stress, recognition of danger and how to support crew members in need.
He said: “I hope this training can continue. This is very important, because in the seafarer’s life, they are quite far from their family.
“They have jobs with limited social outlets, so, this is very, very important.”
The ITF and KPI plan to hold three more first responder trainings for officers and ratings, as well as a more in-depth ‘Training of the Trainer’ seminar later in 2025, alongside establishing an emergency call centre run in Indonesian – Bahasa Indonesia – later this year.
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Notes
The ITF-Pertamina agreement is the latest in a series of mental health and wellbeing agreements struck by the ITF. It builds on similar partnerships with the Philippines, Indonesia, India and training undertaken in Romania for ten maritime universities from seven Black Sea countries (Albania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Montenegro, Romania, Turkey and Ukraine).
