After more than a decade in the Army, including a deployment to Iraq, Shane Dimech knows what it’s like to live under constant pressure. These days, he’s channelling that experience into helping others find peace. Through Our Mate-Ship Limited, Shane offers free wellness days on the water for current and ex-serving military personnel, first responders, their families and carers.
Shane’s military career spanned 11 years, with his final five in the water transport division. The last three were spent in Sydney on maritime domestic counterterrorism — “a long time of high tempo, high stress roles,” he recalls. After leaving the Army in 2011, he moved into the civil marine industry and then launched his own marine-based businesses.
By mid-2016, however, things began to unravel. “My wheels started wobbling a little bit and then totally fell off at the beginning of 2017,” Shane says. An ambulance took him to a veterans’ mental health hospital, and on his first day there, the seed for Mate-Ship was planted. “I wanted to try and stop people ending up where I had just ended up,” he explains.
Before his breakdown, Shane believed he was living the dream. “I had all the money, all the toys, all the shiny things, but I didn’t want to be here,” he admits. That turning point in hospital changed his life’s direction. He began volunteering for various veteran and emergency service support organisations, eventually deciding to start his own.
In mid-2023, he purchased a 46-foot motor sailor, established the organisation, secured charity status and got the program underway. Not long after, someone donated a 26-foot ocean-going fishing vessel, now moored at Pelican Waters.
The aim of the program is straightforward. “We provide downtime for people where they don’t need to do anything. They just step on board, fish or don’t fish, sit there, look at the scenery, have a chat, and decompress.”
The Sunshine Coast is home to thousands of veterans, from younger generations to Vietnam veterans and even a few from the World War II era.
For Shane, this work is deeply personal. PTSD and anxiety are part of his own story. “The military trains you for war, but there’s no off button once you get out,” he explains. “You don’t need to be on alert, you don’t need to be on time for everything, you don’t need everything to be perfect, but unfortunately there’s not a little switch that we can turn off at the end.”
Shane’s program offers not only a break from daily pressures but a rare space where participants feel understood. He doesn’t pretend to be a counsellor, but he knows the value of lived experience. “I think people get a lot more from speaking to someone who has been there, than someone who’s just educated out of a book.”
More information: mate-ship.org
