0:00  
Hi, hi. 

0:05  
That

0:06  
Hi Chrissy. Hi! 

0:09  
is Chrissy. She's a bird, a red crested cockatoo. Who lives at Novah's Ark a one of a kind educational facility in Brooklin, Ontario. 

0:19  
We've been saving funds for the last 15 years and we now have something called the Animal Care Center. And it is a 2000 square foot barn, that is not a barn.

0:31  
And it was here that we met Chrissy and there was a zebra.

0:37  
So that is a zebra and I have hyenas. Any of our animals that require heat are in there. So our caracal, serval, our large snakes, our tortoises, our coatimundis or parrots. Anything that our children would access spring, summer and fall, they can now access in the winter.

0:58  
And the accessibility doesn't stop there.

1:00  
It is wheelchair and space accessible for children with autism.

1:05  
All of this sounds like something you may find at a zoo, but here that couldn't be farther from the truth.

1:10  
So no photos from the cage. 

1:12  
We were at the enclosure of Sasha and Farley, a Siberian Lynx and Bobcat respectively. 

1:17  
If you take photos with the cage, then all of a sudden where's the animal.

1:20  
The animals aren't just there to be admired or even to keep Marianne company. In fact, that's not why they're there at all. 

1:27  
And these two, Sasha.

1:30  
The Siberian Lynx?

1:31  
She's a therapy animal, she is phenomenal. There are three forms of animal focus that we'll do animal therapy. One is the focus where we use it as research. The other is what we're going to do now is animal interactions going in checking, looking at what we're doing. The others animal therapy,

1:48  
There's so much more to Novah's Ark than just the animals. In fact, we've barely even met Maryann Nova herself. Her story... 

1:54  
Is that I was never good enough. I had, there been a lot of name calling a lot of very sad moments. Going home from school and those types of things and what saved me were the animals on my parents farm. And when I grew up, I wanted to be a teacher, because I wanted someone to teach the way I should have had a teacher. Instead of being told how terrible I was, and that I would never learn to do anything. My teaching world was for those individuals that needed an advocate that needed someone to help interpret where they were at, and what they needed. And what it ended up happening is I discovered that it wasn't only children being bullied, so were their parents.

2:41  
And so.

2:42  
That's when I decided I wanted a place. I wanted a place that parents could feel safe to come in that no one would stare at them like they do in a school. I wanted a place where people could be free to be who they were, and that they were okay learning something different. And so here's Novah's Ark. I never had the grand plans of this. And then eight years ago, this became so much in demand by parents who didn't realize that I was still working as a principal in the school. I left my principalship without a pension. I left early, and I took the gamble and I came here.

3:23  
And things have certainly changed from the quiet days eight years ago.

3:26  
We've now made this into a full time facility. We go six days a week in the winter, seven days a week from spring until fall. The individuals that come to us during our school week are in our alternative education program called Out of the Box. As I said earlier, our youngest is two and a half should be in kindergarten. Many of the children under the age of 16 that come to us are individuals that are struggling with school.

3:53  
Luckily, Marianne doesn't go it alone anymore and has a dedicated group of professionals to help her out.

3:59  
I'm a former elementary school principal. I have friend of mine who's also an elementary school principal. We have a teacher with her master's that's working here with us. I have a practical nurse. I have social worker, child youth worker, recreation therapist, occupational therapists, speech language pathologist.

4:18  
And they are incredibly busy.

4:21  
So a number of people who are experts in their fields, we bring them all together. We work with the schools, the schools may provide us some of what they call homework.

4:31  
It seems her and I share the same loathing for that word.

4:34  
And what we do is we modify it to make it work and show how the child can be successful. We do a lot of our own school like opportunities, but very different from sitting in a desk and it has become that safe place that magical place when you cross a bridge and come into the forest. You leave everything else behind. When you watch parents come in at the beginning of the day or the end of the day they're getting out of their cars and they're talking to each other and they're laughing and they're sharing. And children are running to the cars and they're sharing whatever they've been doing. And it is a very positive place, a very inviting place. And for me, it's always been why can't schools be that way?