The Human-Animal Bond as a Transformative Healing Tool
This May, four children from The Children’s Foundation Cindrich School Program will be attending eight weeks at Sali Farm (Semiahmoo Animal League Inc). Sali Farm in Cloverdale B.C. is a unique working farm designed with Animal Assisted Intervention and Horticultural Therapy Activities at their core. Research into these interventions has proven that the uncomplicated but deeply resonate connection the children make with the animals and the earth, can generalize to human connections, creating empathy, trust and safety.
Sali Farm’s animals are all rescue animals that have been injured, neglected, abandoned or abused. Here they are provided with a sanctuary of safety and nurturing, where the children, alongside trained staff, care for the animals. The partnership between animal welfare and child welfare is central to the Sali farm philosophy, where both can thrive and be transformed through their mutual experiences. At Sali Farm the commitment is to helping the most vulnerable in the community whether they have two legs or four!
The Children’s Foundation staff notice that as soon as the children reach the farm and get out of the van, they are instantly calm and attentively curious about what they will do. Going to Sali Farm is already proving to be transformative for the four children attending as well as the animals and garden that the children are caring for. Thank you donors for making a big difference in the lives of these children and the animals and the earth they are learning to care for.