Our Employees Founded a School in Madagascar

PPG’s St-Just en Chaussée site in France had helped to build a school in Madagascar. The site had a new computer suite fitted and employees decided to donate all the old computer equipment to charity. They chose the organization called L’école des Tulipes, which helps children living in Ambalamanasy, East Madagascar to enroll into school.

Our employee’s setup a new school in Ambalamanas

In 2003, our employee Lionel Poullain, Production Operator in Saint-Just en Chaussée and his wife, Cathie decided to build a school and set up the L’école des Tulipes association. They were visiting the town Ambalamanasy in Madagascar and noticed that many children were out of school. This was mainly due to the cost of schooling and the fact that the nearest school was miles away.

Lionel successfully established the school in 2003 with two teachers, two classes and 38 pupils. Today, there are 12 classes, 19 teachers and 540 students.

PPG helped to created computer science program

All the PPG computers from the St-Just en Chaussée plant were prepared for donation by several A&S employees: Elisabeth Poullain, Jean Paul ALLAL, Bernard Belverge, François Xavier Bazin, and Carlos Goncalves. They transported them to the L’école des Tulipes school in Madagascar, along with books and other supplies from others donators. The principal of the school, Thomas Patrice, was so happy to receive all the generous donations in January 2018.

Unfortunately, the majority of school was destroyed when hurricane Ava hit on January 5, 2018. Lionel and his wife, are now raising funds to help rebuild the school and classrooms.