Help is at hand for single parents struggling to hold down a job, keep a roof over their head and their kids out of trouble.

Single Parents in Action has already helped transform lives for parents in desperate straits.

Director Althea Iris has around 20 families under her wing.

She said: ?We listen first and then direct and encourage. Most people are at the end of their rope, don?t know of anywhere to go.

?Their families have cast them out. They feel inferior, they need hope.

?Their lights might be about to be turned off or they might face eviction because of rent arrears.

?We have put on people?s lights and kept three families from having their power turned off.?

The organisation is in its third incarnation after earlier problems scuppered progress despite a great need for its service.

Now it troubleshoots and helps people cope with diverse problems such as money management and abuse in the home.

Fundraising efforts in churches have brought funds and presentations will be extended to the corporate world who will be asked to adopt a family.

The group gathers school clothes, discounted food from the bakeries and surplus food at Lindo?s for its food bank.

Single Parents in Action has links with the Family Learning Centre and other organisations dealing with groups involved with family, parents and children.

Families are matched up with mentors in churches. The St. Vincent De Paul Catholic mission has helped out but Mrs. Iris wishes more churches would get on board.

?The churches are really doing church organisation, they are not doing outside ministry.

?I have been in church for 20 years and I have seen little of what we are doing ? teaching mothers how to be mothers, how to clean house, how to cook and manage a home, how to be a wife to your husband who is frustrated.

?It is not happening and the gap is getting bigger.?

Although she is married Mrs. Iris is acutely aware of the plight of the single parent.

?There are a lot of people who can?t send their children to school because they don?t have laundry money or enough food for the children to have a meal at lunchtime when someone is watching.

?I realised there were some real issues.?

The group encourages single parents to be self reliant rather than depending on handouts.

She said: ?We want to teach people. You bake well? Get your private home certified, get your water tested or find a church with a spot you can work out of and start baking. Or ironing or modelling.

?We are available 24-7 because crises don?t have a time on them.

?What we would like to do is set up businesses and turn them over to families.

?There are so many creative ways to go about building up people.

?A lot of people think big. Bermudians for sure, we are Mercedes, we are Louis Vuitton.?

Today?s generation needed to be told how to save, she added.

?Grandmothers and mothers haven?t told their children how they got their house.

?They didn?t take a trip all the time or eat out every day. They sacrificed but we don?t tell those stories.

?You save and save and save, then you get. You take care of the important things.?

The organisation encourages people to pay rent weekly rather than monthly to help money management.

?Otherwise people end up using rent money for food and transport, by the time it comes to pay the rent they are short.

?Most people say ?I don?t have it all so wait until I get it?.

?But they keep dipping and dipping. I know, I have been there.?

She told the story of a young East End mother with two young babies who was in crisis who ended up taking a job in Hamilton under duress.

Both her parents were drug addicts.

Her husband didn?t work while she couldn?t because of morning sickness which culminated in a nervous breakdown because of post-natal depression as rent arrears mounted.

?She fell through the cracks.?

One of her parents then moved in without helping with bills which ended up being thousands of dollars in arrears. A kindly landlady saw the woman wasn?t to blame.

The woman was forced to give up her two babies and take a weekend and late shift job but had no transport to get to town.

The woman called Single Parents in Action, which organised bake sales and got in touch with her employer. It emerged the woman had a marketing background.

This was encouraged and she was moved to a better and more family friendly nine-to-five job in her company.

?Now the woman is back with her babies because we advocated on her behalf.?

The group also lobbied over rental arrears and is working to raise cash.

She noted the irony of children being taken away from poverty-stricken mothers by the state, only for cash then to be given to foster parents to pay for their upkeep.

?It?s punitive, they take the child from you and give it to a stranger.?

The group has no data on how many single parents there were in Bermuda and plan to gather statistics. But Mrs. Iris fears the worst.

?I would guess at least 75 percent of the population is single whether it be divorced, widowed, or unwed.?

If want to help or you need help call 292-3150.

The group needs mentors who can offer one-on-one help including baby sitting and financial and legal advice.