About
A practical framework for recovery
Project Aura is a recovery program and curriculum with built-in support — made for people in recovery, families, and local health programs.
Why Project Aura exists
Addiction affects the whole person — body, mind, and spirit. It does not erase who someone is. Yet most programs treat only one part of the problem, and families are left without a shared language for what recovery actually involves.
Project Aura is a structured program and curriculum with support, giving families, health workers, and local governments a clear, practical path: a map of what recovery includes, language families can use, and a framework LGU programs can adopt.
- A clear map of what recovery includes
- Language families can use to support a loved one
- A practical framework LGU programs can adopt
The whole person, in focus
Recovery is more than sobriety. The A.U.R.A. framework works across five levels of health — see the full framework on the home page.
Physical
Vitality
Emotional
Mental
Spiritual
How we work
Our community-facing programs are funded by donors and sponsors — free or low-cost for barangays, LGU health offices, and local recovery circles.
Designed with lived experience
People in recovery, families, and frontline workers helped shape this framework.
Built for local communities
Made to work in barangay halls, LGU health offices, faith groups, and neighborhood circles.
Peer support first
We train community members to walk alongside one another, not to replace existing services.
Open to partners
We collaborate with local organizations, schools, businesses, and government programs.
“Hindi ikaw ang mga pagsubok na nalampasan mo. Ikaw ang liwanag na naghihintay.”
Meet the team
The people behind Project Aura bring training, lived experience, and years of international work — united by one goal: practical support that people can actually use. All of them are co-creators of Aura Health Institute.
Victoria Herrera
Life coach, strategist, and founder of VPH Coaching
Victoria is a life coach, strategist, and the founder of VPH Coaching. Her work centers on the patterns that keep people stuck: burnout, people-pleasing, overgiving, and the coping habits that grow out of them. She is a certified health coach through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and is trained in breathwork and somatics, which she uses to help clients regulate the nervous system and reconnect with the body.
She brings nearly 20 years of experience in brand building, media, and leadership, including five years as VP of Marketing at the livestream app Kumu, and she hosts the podcast Being Human. Victoria is a life coach, not a licensed therapist or addiction treatment provider. Her coaching supports recovery alongside, never in place of, medical care, detox, or clinical treatment.
Chris Almirañez
Recovery facilitator
Chris is a certified facilitator with training in Mindful Living from the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center in Los Angeles, Relapse Prevention from UCSD in San Diego, and adolescent studies from the Center for Adolescent Studies in Oakland, California.
He holds a Professional Diploma in Family Ministries from the Ruben M. Tanseco Center for Family Ministries, and he runs Recoverist PH, a Facebook community where people in recovery and their families find practical, everyday support. His focus is on tools people can use in daily life, not on replacing existing care.
Angelica Umali
Founder of House of Wisdom Global and transformational life and leadership mentor
She is a certified Transformational Life Mentor and an Energy Medicine Senior Specialist who blends Eastern and Western techniques to help leaders move past limitations and build daily habits that increase their stress and fatigue tolerance. She specializes in depression and anxiety and in the side effects of cancer.
She brings 18 years of multinational corporate experience across more than 30 countries and over 50 nationalities, including expatriate leadership roles in Thailand, Switzerland, and the Middle East. Her purpose is to awaken wisdom in leadership and conscience in entrepreneurship.
We also work with facilitators, health workers, and community partners across the country — see our partners.
Walk with us
Whether you want the program in your community or you want to help carry it there, there is a place for you in this work.