Between October 2020 and November 2021, groups of more than 150 Kiribati seafarers in total were stranded in Hamburg. Due to a complete closure of their home country's borders and travel restrictions because of the COVID-19 pandemic, they were unable to return to their South Pacific home island for a long time. Two shipping companies in Hamburg, which employ Kiribatis on a large scale on their ships, had brought these seafarers together in Hamburg from different ports of disembarkation. After many of them had been separated from their families for more than 1.5 years, they stayed in the youth hostel in Hamburg Horn or the Seamen's Mission in Altona for an initially unforeseeable period of time.
In this challenging psychosocial situation of the seafarers, it was important for humanitarian reasons to engage together with many others for the seafarers. The ZfAM got involved. Among other things, all Kiribati seafarers were offered the opportunity to test the e-learning platform developed in the project free of charge. This also gave the scientists an impression of the usability of the Moodle-based health platform with its strengths and weaknesses. This commitment to leisure activities and entertainment for Kiribati seafarers was very much welcomed by Ms Gallina, Senator for Justice and Consumer Protection.
