Butterfly Palliative Home is a hospice providing end-of-life care to orphaned & abandoned children.
10/11/2025
Empangeni friends, our peaceful garden seating is calling your name! 👋🏽👋🏽
Need a little pick-me-up this week?
Why not combine your craving for a fantastic coffee with doing some good?
The Thrift (our Butterfly charity shop and home to Cultivate Coffee) is the perfect little sanctuary for catching up or just enjoying a quiet moment.
Grab a seriously delicious cup of Cultivate Coffee (you deserve it!) and check out the new, irresistible sweet bakes and eats on the counter today.
Browse our constantly updated racks of pre-loved treasures (clothing, accessories, and homeware) at amazing bargain prices.
Here's the best part: When you sip that coffee or snag that bargain, you're directly helping us care for vulnerable children with life-limiting conditions at Butterfly Home. It's a shopping trip and a good deed all rolled into one!
Come find your quiet moment this week at 1 Eland Crescent, Nyala Park, Empangeni. We can't wait to see your faces!
📍 1 Eland Crescent, Nyala Park, Empangeni
🕙 Monday to Friday: 7am to 5pm
🕙 Saturday: 8am - 1pm
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07/11/2025
The Department of Social Development’s draft Children’s Amendment Bill criminalises baby savers and safe relinquishment.
The DA’s Private Members Bill does the opposite- it legalises baby savers, baby safe havens and safe relinquishment. Submit your support and submission on the DA’s bill before 16 November 2025 at speaker@parliament.gov.za and copy in legislation@da.org.za
07/11/2025
Look who's sitting all by himself! This is a huge deal, guys! Seriously. Well done, Smangi boy! We are so incredibly proud of you. Love you to bits! 🎉💯🥰
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06/11/2025
It’s time to play!
Thank you to Waymaker e.V. in Germany for sponsoring a new playground at Butterfly Empangeni🎉🎉🎉
Our little patients and their siblings are going to have so much fun🥳
05/11/2025
With broken hearts, our Butterfly Home Ingwavuma family shares that little miss Oluhle passed away this past weekend.
We wish we could have had more time to love you and watch you bloom. What a gift it was to hold you, care for you, and call you part of our family.
You will always be loved, always remembered, and forever a part of us.
Our deepest condolences and love to Oluhle’s family. 🤍
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04/11/2025
Happy Monday, friends! 🌼🌻🌺
Just look at Hope’s smile this morning… pure sunshine! ☀️😍
If we could bottle this joy and share it with you all, we absolutely would!
Wishing you the same bright, infectious happiness as you head into the new week.
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04/11/2025
We are so excited to launch our FOOD FORWARD Drive! 🎉🥕🥦🍞
Are you a farmer, home baker, small business owner, grocery store manager, retailer, or restauranteur in the Zululand area?
At Butterfly Home Empangeni and Ingwavuma, we support children and families facing life-limiting and terminal illnesses. Part of our heart-work is blessing families with nutritious meals and groceries during home visits, especially during the hardest seasons of their lives.
If you ever end up with perfectly “good food” that is close to – or just past – its sell-by date, we would love to give it a second life. Instead of letting good produce or pantry items go to waste, please consider donating them to our children hospices.
👩🍳 We cook soups, stews, baked goods and hearty meals every day for our in-house children and our home-based care families. We can put your waste to good use!
Every carrot, onion, or loaf of bread can make a real difference.
If you’d like to contribute, reach out to Tarryn at tarryn@butterflyhome.org.za or drop donations at either of our children’s hospices:
EMPANGENI:
Butterfly Palliative Home
1 Eland Crescent
Nyala Park
Empangeni
3880
Contact Nr: +27 66 435 1302
INGWAVUMA:
Butterfly Palliative Home
Main Road
Ingwavuma
3968
Contact Nr: +27 71 580 4719
Thank you for helping us turn “still good” food into nourishment, comfort and hope.
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31/10/2025
There is something so special about a community that rolls up its sleeves for our little ones. Yesterday some of our incredible local farmers and neighbours arrived with gardening tools, big smiles, and even bigger hearts to help make our Empangeni children's hospice garden beautiful. 🌺🌱🪻
Caring for our Butterfly Babies takes a lot of time and love, and we do not always have the extra hands to keep our outdoor spaces looking their best. So, seeing this crew show up and pour time, sweat, and kindness into our garden truly meant the world to us.
Now our space feels even more peaceful and welcoming for our kids, their families, and everyone who pops in for coffee or a browse in our charity shop. There is love in every flower bed and freshly swept corner. 🍄🌼🌳
Thank you, thank you, thank you for giving your time and energy so generously. You really made a difference, and we appreciate you more than you know. 💚🌿😘
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30/10/2025
At the Union Buildings, campaigners stood together for South Africa’s most vulnerable, calling for baby savers to be protected and not criminalised.
30/10/2025
We came across this random old photo and honestly can’t remember what this craziness was about. Why does Aggie have a balloon crown?! And I can only assume the voluminous blanket cape was to keep her snug and upright in the swing?? I wonder what little miss Aggie would have to say about this now! 👑🎈🧐
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29/10/2025
We have to give a MASSIVE, heartfelt, standing ovation to the incredible communities of Birdsview Academy and the preschoolers at Grantleigh Schools ! 🙌🏼👏🏾🥳
We asked for help, and you didn't just step up… you LEAPED! We are absolutely blown away by your generosity, kindness, and effort. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you to every student, parent, and teacher who contributed to the amazing donation drive for Butterfly Home! You are absolute heroes for organizing this and nurturing such a powerful sense of community and kindness.
You are special. Your effort is special. Thank you for making our work possible and making a BIG difference in the lives of our little Butterflies! 🫶🏿🥰
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Nestled on top of the picturesque mountain community of Ingwavuma, South Africa, is a very special place called Butterfly Palliative Home. Here we care for orphaned and abandoned babies from all over South Africa who need a family and special medical care due to life-limiting conditions. All of these little ones have a story to share. Their stories are mostly heartbreaking, filled with sad memories and many visits to the hospital. But they all have one thing in common: they are survivors - they are little warriors - and they now call BPH their home...
It all started in January 2018 when our founders, Christoff and Tarryn Bell, received a phone call about an abandoned baby boy from Soweto who needed a home. This tiny person happened to be discovered by a jogger out on his morning run who heard a noise and found a tiny baby discarded in the bushes. At the time baby Si was thought to have Down Syndrome and was estimated to be about six months old. Cold, dehydrated and emaciated, little Si was rushed to a nearby hospital to receive emergency medical treatment.
The Bells adopted their son Joshua, who has Down Syndrome, in 2015 and the hope was that they might be interested in adopting another little guy with the same diagnosis. Christoff Bell, a medical doctor at Mosvold Hospital, and his wife Tarryn, a social worker, were running a Christian non-profit called Izandla ZeAfrika at the time. It soon came to light that baby Si’s condition was much more serious than anticipated and he was diagnosed with Trisomy 18 or “Edwards Syndrome”, a condition which is widely regarded as not being compatible with life. Baby Si was in bad shape and not given long to live.
The Bells could not shake the feeling that they were called to help this little one as well as others like him. After much deliberation and prayer they decided to take Si into Foster Care and opened Butterfly Home for babies with palliative needs. The little home was started as a project under Izandla ZeAfrika and started with four home-based caregivers who were trained to look after children with special needs. A week after Si arrived at Butterfly home the next butterfly was placed, and soon after that another one. The little ones kept coming and the home grew and grew. Si began to flourish and was quickly surrounded by five brothers and sisters.
Today Butterfly Palliative Home is a registered Non-Profit Company and in the process obtaining full Hospice status. We are growing from strength to strength, with the help of amazing sponsors and volunteers and a team of twelve staff members ensure that our children receive only the best care.
