"Our port chaplains and volunteer ship visitors welcome seafarers, offer welfare services and advice, practical help, care and friendship," their website states.
Athaide serves in the ports of Delta and Vancouver on the western coast of British Columbia, Canada.
"Piracy and the threat of piracy can have a lasting effect on seafarers' well-being and mental health," Athaide added. "Our experience of caring for seafarers shows that swift intervention is essential to minimize the impact of a pirate attack, so crews can return to work with confidence."
The International Maritime Bureau defines piracy "any illegal acts of violence or detention, or...depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft, and directed on the high seas, against another ship or aircraft, or against persons or property on board such ship or aircraft; against a ship, aircraft, persons or property in a place outside the jurisdiction of any State; any act of voluntary participation in the operation of a ship or of an aircraft with knowledge of facts making it a pirate ship or aircraft;" or any act that incites or facilitates such acts.
The Bureau reported that between January and June of this year, there were 78 actual or attempted acts of piracy committed, including 57 vessels illegally boarded, nine vessels fired upon, nine attempted incidents, and three hijackings.
According to the report, 38 crew were taken hostage, 37 kidnapped, four threatened, two injured, one assaulted, and one crew reported killed in that same amount of time.