Martha Dismont never planned on being a single mom.

However she was forced to raise her daughter Aruna alone after her husband Roy Dismont Jr, died suddenly in 1989.

She prayed through the night after he passed, wondering how she would manage on her own.

“By the morning I was okay and I knew God would keep us blessed and cared for,” she said.

Over the years Mrs Dismont learned a lot about parenting — mainly through trial and error. It helped that she had tremendous family support; she also gained strength from her religious faith.

She recently received CableVision’s Rollin Nathan Community Service Award for her work as executive director of Family Centre. She started the charity in 1996.

It wouldn’t have been possible without support and patience from her daughter, she said.

“[It wasn’t easy] to take on what I did in setting up TFC,” Mrs Dismont said.

“It wasn’t until I was deep in it that I realised what I had taken on and my daughter had to be really patient through all of the time that it took to set this up.

“It’s your loved ones and the ones close to you that have to be the most patient and sacrifice the most. That’s something I eventually came to appreciate.”

Mrs Dismont didn’t set out to start a charity.

She was a substitute counsellor and teacher when she met a young boy who was struggling academically.

“He was being teased by other children, so I went to his mother and said, ‘If he had a little bit of tutoring he wouldn’t get teased so much’.

“I offered it at no cost to her, just to give her some help. A month later that mom told another parent, and I had two children after a few months. It spiralled within two years to almost 100 children per week.”

Watching the struggles faced by many families on the Island during that period led her to take a leap of faith and start her own charity.

Family Centre has since grown to include counselling services, parenting workshops and after-school programmes.

Along the way Mrs Dismont had to learn how to balance her important charity work with being a single mom.

She said she discovered early on the importance of being there when her child needed her.

One day when she was busy watching television or talking on the phone, her then three-year-old daughter was desperate to get her attention.

“She took my face in her hands and said, ‘Mommy, I am talking to you’,” Mrs Dismont said. “I learned from then on that genuinely listening to your child is important.”

As children get older it becomes even more important to be present, she added.

“Don’t just assume that because they can walk and feed themselves they don’t need you. You should actually spend more time in their space in those adolescent years. That’s probably the most critical time.

“This means that you have to develop a strong relationship with your child prior to primary six. You want to make sure they are talking to you rather than running away from you. You want them to come to you for advice.”

Around the age of nine, children start discovering things that steal their attention, she said.

“You want to have already equipped them with core values and beliefs so when they get to a situation where they have to make a choice on what to do they make the right one or at least they come to you for guidance and support,” she continued.

“If you haven’t done that it’s very difficult.

“With my daughter, we talked about the rules of her getting a bike before she reached 16. So when she reached that age and was dealing with the emotions of the moment she already knew what she had to do.”

These days Mrs Dismont considers her relationship with her daughter to be a close one.

As for Aruna, she’s proud of all that her mom has accomplished.

“It’s great to see people look to her for advice and guidance and that she’s become somewhat of a leader on the Island,” the 26-year-old said.

“It’s also great that she does everything with integrity and determination, never backing down or compromising what she believes is right and making the best decision for whatever situation she has to deal with.

“I admire that she has such clear vision and the best intentions for Bermuda’s social fabric and the community as a whole.”

The most valuable lesson she learned from her mom is to do the right thing and stay true to yourself, she added.

“You have to be yourself, but there are always choices you have to make in life. You also have to know what the consequences are and know them before you make that choice. My mom taught me ‘If you want the best outcome, you have to make the best choice’.”