There are now 75,000 children in Manila who wander the streets. Left to their own devices, these children are too often victims of abuse and drug trafficking.

The Virlanie Foundation was created to help solve this problem. Its aim is to give these children back hope for a better future. The Virlanie teams, on a daily basis, accompany and take care of the most disadvantaged children who require special protection: toddlers, orphans and handicapped children. In the street or through its 12 houses, the institution provides services develop their autonomy, then their independence, with the goal of facilitating their insertion into society.

For the children still leaving in the street, Virlanie has designed an original program, “The Mobile Unit Project”, whose objective is social reintegration through academic and sanitary education.

Virlanie’s vehicle, a sort of itinerant school, crisscrosses the poorest areas of Manila to give courses, even on the sidewalks, to groups of street children.
Using interaction and learning through games, the teachers treat different themes: literacy training, abuse and accident prevention, awareness-raising on health and nutrition.

In 2010, the Air Liquide Foundation took part in revamping this program: a total overhaul of the vehicle, training of the personnel in psycho-social and childhood domains, purchase of new pedagogical materials. The aim: to improve the know-how and resources of the mobile school’s team who would like to help over 140 children.

With a budget of nearly 3 million euros over five years, the Air Liquide Foundation's ambition is to accompany projects in France and abroad.

Since its creation, the Air Liquide Foundation supports 57 projects in over 30 countries:

• 8 scientific research programs in the environmental and medical fields,
• 49 micro-initiatives in education, micro-entrepreneurship, handicaps, the social sector...

The Foundation carries out its action by notably relying on Air Liquide employees who sponsor micro-initiatives. In this way, the Foundation provides the opportunity to those who wish to get involved in solidarity actions to express their social and human commitment by participating in the evaluation and accompaniment of projects.

Today, 100 Group employees are involved in the projects supported by the Foundation.