7th Heaven Children's Haven NPC

We asked this Cause 3 Questions: >> Who are you and what do you do? >> Why did you get started? >> Tell us a story - a person you helped - that keeps you going...

Tell us a bit about your Cause - who are you and what do you do?

7th Heaven Children’s Haven is a Child and Youth Care Centre, founded by Nelly Senong to provide a loving and disciplined Christian home to children taken into care due to severe neglect and/or abuse.

Our mission is to give these children back their dignity and sense of self worth, to help them grow to be valued members of society. We are a registered non-profit Company, and NPO, with volunteer directors who have a range of backgrounds and skills to give support and assistance in the many areas a children’s home involves. Nelly is highly trained to cope with Alcohol Foetal Syndrome, trauma and underdevelopment, as well as Montessori training for early childhood development. We welcome the interest and support of those with a heart to assist neglected children be cared for, educated and given a chance of a new start in life to develop to their full potential. We have children in short term care and long term also, catering for up to 21 children.

The Haven is a safe house and assists the police with lost children or children at risk with short term care. The Haven also helps those who struggle, with day care including a couple of special need children. Each child is special, and has a different story and a different way of coping with their experiences. It is important that they are met with love, encouragement and guidance along that individual path. We thank all the wonderful people who have come alongside the Haven to assist in caring for the children, to teach them new skills and fun development activities.

There are so many challenges to meet, but Nelly has a strong gifting with children, and with God’s help and with your assistance we can meet these.

Why did we get started

Our founder, Nelly Senong, has always had a strong calling to help children in need, and shortly after coming to Jeffreys Bay in 2001 to work as a counsellor, she found herself helping with street children and was then asked by the social services to help them with the full-time care of a child they had to place in care, then another and so the Haven was born! There was a need in Jeffreys Bay for a safe house but also for longer term care, to ensure a loving family type care for children in alternative care. This meant that children would not be removed far away from their extended family and could maintain family and community links.

A story of one beneficiary

There are so many stories and lots of different emotions. However, to choose one, Nelly thinks of Blessing, a baby brought to her by the police when he was abandoned. The relative had been left the baby when the mother went away, and was afraid the very sickly baby would die in his care, so he left him at the police station. Nelly and 7th Heaven have nursed, nurtured and loved this baby who is now a strong boy of 11, doing gymnastics and not afraid to try anything, even excelling at sewing classes! He has health problems but copes well, and is managing at school thanks to assistance from J Bay Academy.