With women representing just 1.2% of the global seafarer workforce, AMSA is proactively supporting an increase female participation in the maritime industry.
In order to increase women’s participation in shipping, AMSA has several initiatives underway to achieve this, in addition collaborative efforts in several international initiatives, one of which was to support the IMO’s establishment of an International Day for Women in Maritime, with first set for 18 May this year.
One of the initiatives to build women’s participation in the domestic maritime sector is a scholarship program to provide maritime scholarships and cadetships for women, including a Women in Maritime Engineering Scholarship.
The program helps build skills and support future maritime professionals, while encouraging young women to enter the industry.
The 2020 and 2021 AMSA Women in Maritime Engineering Scholarship recipients are Hayley Bellinger and Shelby Hewins, both of whom study at the University of Tasmania.
Asked about why do women not want to have a career at sea, the scholarship recipients answered that:
Women are a little intimidated about the complexity and workload that comes along with being in engineering, along with knowing that it’s a male-dominated sector
