The Women’s International Shipping and Trading Association (WISTA) Sri Lanka partnered with Young Shipping Professionals (YSP) of CASA and very successfully organised Career Day 2017, a programme for students from schools in the Galle District, at Hall de Galle, recently.
The chief guest of the event was Petroleum Resources Minister Chandima Weerakkody.
The two associations, as their corporate social responsibility (CSR) project, jointly planned and carried out this programme to the schoolchildren in the Southern Province, to introduce and promote shipping and logistics as a lucrative career to school leavers through a career guidance workshop with the support of educational institutions that offer logistics and maritime courses and programmes in this field.
Sri Lanka, being an island nation with its unique geographic location as well as a gateway destination to Asia, is seen by many major industry players and are now focusing on relocating logistics and shipping to the Indian Ocean island, where great opportunities are available to speedily connect many continents with consumers of Asia and Africa. 
Therefore, a new shift is taking place in the maritime industry, from the North to South with Sri Lanka emerging as a maritime hub after the rise of Singapore and Dubai, creating a southern maritime zone. Being located at the southern tip of South Asia and situated between the major ports of the Middle East and East Asia, Sri Lanka is ideally located for feeder connectivity in the region. The Port of Colombo has the deepest draught and most efficient terminals in South Asia which are also considered world class. 
In addition, the other ports in Galle, Hambantota and Trincomalee are available for bulk, Ro/Ro, cruise shipping, bunkering, etc. around the island.
The Port of Galle is strategically located on world shipping routes and plans are underway to develop the Port of Galle to a leisure and freight handling port in order to contribute to the economic development of the country.
It was a half-day programme with presentations by leading professionals in the maritime and logistics field who spoke about various career options available within the fields of shipping, logistics and international trade to create an interest in the subject area. This was followed by a tour of the Port of Galle.
Parallel to the Career Day event, WISTA Sri Lanka handed over books on advocacy for seafarer children at the MercMarine office in Galle. These books were gifted by Marissa Oca from WISTA Philippines, who publishes books for seafarers’ children. She is also a proponent of livelihood projects for seafarers’ wives.