Bermuda may be a small island but it is full of unsung heroes — inspirational residents who are making a real difference in their communities and improving the lives of others, without expecting any recognition or praise. In our regular feature, we celebrate the incredible achievements of the ordinary people who are doing extraordinary things.

Mary Basden has devoted more than two decades of her life to helping men, women and children in abusive relationships.

The dedicated great-grandmother of 12 has been volunteering with the Centre Against Abuse since 1991, but she insists she is not a hero. “My mother was the hero for walking away from an abusive relationship with eight children,” Mrs Basden said. She was eight when her mother left her father — an alcoholic gambler — because of abuse, Mrs Basden explained.

“He didn’t really support us and my mother was working and struggling to bring up us eight children,” she said.

Mrs Basden said she leapt at the chance to help others when she was asked to volunteer at the charity’s safe house because she remembered what her mother had been through. In 1994, Mrs Basden became the matron of the shelter and took on full responsibility for caring for the women and children who stayed there.

She would be at the shelter between 8am and 5pm, when the night shift would take over, and single-handedly ran the organisation’s 24-hour hotline.

“When a woman was being abused, or Police or Family Services were involved, they would come to the shelter or the Police would bring them, and I would care for them — it was a safe house,” Mrs Basden said.

“They would reside there until they either got their own place or they found accommodations on their own.”

Mrs Basden said that she was upset when the shelter was forced to close last year because of a lack of funding.

“I am hoping and praying that some day it can be reopened because we definitely need a safe house in Bermuda,” said the mother of eight.

“Domestic abuse is a problem in Bermuda and always will be until we get more education out there.

“A lot of women are afraid to come forward and a lot of men are afraid to say that they are being abused.

“They [don’t] realise that there is help out there for them, that there is someone that they can go and talk to, or somewhere they can go.

“I always say that Bermudians are very proud people — they don’t like someone to know what they are going through.”

Mrs Basden said residents from overseas were also affected by domestic abuse.

“There are a lot of women who come here and marry and they get abused,” she said. “Of course they are afraid because they don’t know anyone, so they stay and take the abuse.”

She remembers one case in particular, when a man locked his wife and child in the house every day until a neighbour called the Centre.

Mrs Basden said people often did not realise that when someone from overseas was being abused, the charity took them out of their situation and sent them home to their families.

“We will go to insurance companies or the airlines and say, ‘Listen, we need your help. We’ve got a client and we need to get her out of Bermuda’,” said Mrs Basden, who once put a seven-month pregnant woman on a 5am flight.

“Any person in an abusive relationship should find a way to walk away.

“I always vowed that if I got married, no man would ever do to me what my father did to my mother.

“I’m helping somebody who is being abused because I know what my father did to my mother, and if my mother hadn’t got out of that situation, I think she would have been beat down, but she rose above that.”

Mrs Basden said the most rewarding thing was seeing a woman who had been abused get back on her feet and realise that “she is somebody”.

“I have seen that happen — I know one lady who came into the shelter beat down because her husband told her she was nobody or nobody would want her,” Mrs Basden said. “But she’s got a good job and she looks beautiful.”

“The Centre Against Abuse is my heart. Although I am not employed there, it is still my heart.

Mrs Basden volunteers at the Dress for Success thrift store in St George’s from 10am to 1pm on weekdays and has done so since she retired from her position as matron in 2013.

She has also volunteered with PALS Cancer Care as a nursing aid and has sold tickets for their events.

• For more information about the Centre Against Abuse or to donate, call 292-4366 or visit www.centreagainstabuse.bm

• Do you know an Unsung Hero who deserves recognition? Call Lisa on 278-0137 or e-mail lsimpson@royalgazette.com