Caring for orphaned, abandoned, and vulnerable children with Palliative Needs
Butterfly Palliative Home provides hospice care to babies and young children with life-limiting conditions through our two specialized children's hospices in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
We are proud to be the first Children’s Hospice in KZN providing full-time palliative care, and we currently represent two of only five dedicated children’s hospices in the entire country!
WELCOME
Hands-On, Full-Time Care
We offer hands-on, full-time care to children from all over South Africa, also providing medical care without the need for a hospital placement. Our heart is to love these little ones as our own, help them heal emotionally and physically, and learn to trust again as they enjoy their last months or years on earth. With the needed love and care some of our children start to thrive and will survive longer than initially thought and can even be adopted into nurturing families.
About Us
Christoff and Tarryn Bell founded Butterfly Palliative Home in 2018. After having loved and lost a baby girl with Down Syndrome, who was living at a nearby children's home, they felt called to provide a safe haven for babies with palliative needs.
Our Team
Our multi-disciplinary team includes volunteers and professionals such as doctors, nurses, therapists, social workers, pastors, and educational and developmental specialists. At the heart of our work is our dedicated team of general and medical caregivers, trained in children’s palliative care — many of whom are widows from the local community. Together, they provide compassionate, skilled, and deeply relational care to every child entrusted to us.
Our Kids
Our very special children come from all over South Africa. We take the time to learn about each child's unique routine and their specific medical and care requirements before bringing them back to our homes in Ingwavuma and Empangeni. Meet some of our little Butterflies and read their stories.
On top of a mountain...
From our quiet sanctuary on the mountains of Ingwavuma to our home amidst the rolling hills of Empangeni, we provide a place where every life is cherished. Across both locations, our children’s hospice offers specialised care and dignity to vulnerable little ones, ensuring every moment, including their last, is filled with love.
Butterfly Home Ingwavuma
Butterfly Home Ingwavuma is our first children’s hospice, set on a mountaintop in rural KwaZulu-Natal near the borders of Eswatini and Mozambique. What began as a small 3-bedroom home expanded, through faith and donor generosity, into a purpose-designed 12-bed hospice in 2022, offering compassionate palliative care, a gentle and intimate end-of-life room, and space for therapy, learning, and play.
Butterfly Home Empangeni
Opened in May 2025 thanks to the generous support of our faithful donors, Butterfly Palliative Home Empangeni is a warm, homely 8-bed sanctuary. The facility includes Gemma’s Nest for specialised room for neonatal palliative care and a private Family Suite, allowing a parent or caregiver to remain close and connected during their child’s final journey.
Rural Home-Visit Outreach
Not every family lives near a specialised hospice or hospital. Our home visits bring palliative care to rural communities with limited access to healthcare, supporting families who want to care for their sick child at home. Our outreach team offers medical guidance, practical support and essential supplies, right at their doorstep, helping families care for their child with confidence and dignity.
An Immense Need for Infant Palliative Care
Young children and infants with end-of-life or palliative needs are one of the most vulnerable groups within child protection as they need special medical support.
Parents, especially young single moms, often feel overwhelmed when they give birth to a baby who has a life-limiting condition or severe disability such as infants with congenital heart defects (often the case with Down Syndrome babies), Trisomy 18 and 13 as well as children with end-stage HIV complications. Without proper counselling and family support many of these special needs babies end up abandoned or left to die.
Due to their specialised medical, nutritional and therapy needs they are mostly not suitable for conventional adoption, foster care or children's homes, which means they often end up in government hospitals for months or years. This reality only makes the need for places like Butterfly Palliative Home all the greater.
PRECIOUS TIMES
Lots of love & laughter
Butterfly Palliative Home was created in 2018 to provide full-time care to these little ones within a warm, homely environment until they eventually pass on. Butterfly Home is a special place. There is lots of love, laughter and loss all wrapped up into one beautiful little home.
YOU CAN HELP
Get Involved!
We fully rely on the generosity of people who care and offer their time, resources and prayers to support us. There are many ways in which you can help, from sending supplies to volunteering.
a word from the founders
Our purpose is to be the hands and feet of Jesus to babies and young children, regardless of their medical challenges, as we believe that every child deserves love and a stable family life. We dream of a South Africa where babies are not simply discarded because of a palliative diagnosis, but are welcomed by loving families who will tenderly care and provide for them until the end.
Tarryn & Christoff Bell
Founders