Rodrigo Souza Fraga has become the first Mercy Ships volunteer to join a Costa Group vessel as part of a cooperation announced last year.
The 38-year-old Spanish national has embarked as a third officer on the 1,400-passenger cruiseship Costa neoRomantica (built 1993) for four months' experience and sea service.
He will report to the ship’s officer on watch as a member of the navigation and watch-keeping bridge staff.
Fraga is second officer on the 16,572-gt Africa Mercy (built 1980), which is providing free surgery and dental care to patients in Douala, Cameroon, where life expectancy is only 56 years.
He said his time onboard the Costa neoRomantica is proving “challenging yet very fulfilling”.
Fraga said: “There are many positive aspects of the daily work that I’m learning and [that] can be beneficial to Mercy Ships. At the end of this four-month commitment, I will have the opportunity to upgrade my officer’s licence.”
The volunteer programme is among various activities Costa and Mercy Ships agreed to, including the cruiseship operator committing to provide one engineer onboard the Africa Mercy continuously. It has already donated €100,000 ($123,000) to the organisation.
TradeWinds reported earlier how marine engineer Tomislav Zubovic had become the first volunteer from Costa to serve onboard Africa Mercy, the largest non-governmental hospital ship in the world.
