Molce Atelier and ButanGas: together to support women victims of violence

ButanGas stands by the Milan-based association that takes in abused women in a vulnerable and insecure condition, supporting their path to financial and emotional autonomy through empowerment, training and employment.

The encounter is unusual and germinated on the common ground of solidarity between ButanGas, Italy’s leading LPG distributor, and Molce Atelier, a Milanese therapeutic tailor’s shop that welcomes women who have come from histories of violence and abuse, offering them free psychological support, tailoring training courses and a path to job inclusion.

Two distant worlds only in appearance, united in the desire to guarantee as many tools and resources as possible to the path of care and redemption of the many women, Italian and migrant, of all ages and social classes, who turn to and work with the Milanese association.

A concrete gesture of solidarity against gender violence

It is indeed the esteem for Molce Atelier’s activities and the awareness that the path to freedom passes not only through emotional and psychological reconstruction, but also through the financial autonomy guaranteed by training and work, that convinced ButanGas, a subsidiary of the Veroniki Holding Group, to concretely support the project, donating tools, machinery and services that will be crucial for the development and economic sustainability of Molce Atelier’s tailoring shop and for the women who receive care, train and work in the atelier in the coming months. The donation from ButanGas will enable the purchase of five professional machines that will be essential for the continuation of the business.

At ButanGas, they say, “our mission has always been to be able to give hope and an opportunity to all those who have been less fortunate. That is why we are very committed to social activities’. Moreover, they add, ‘we are really happy to be able to help a reality like Molce Atelier because it is important for us to send a message of hope for all women who are currently victims of violence and to reiterate how gender violence is a real social scourge to be fought and eradicated“.

Members and tailors of Molce Atelier celebrate the new collaboration by expressing “gratitude for the concrete support and human solidarity shown by the ButanGas management, also through the small gestures that have accompanied the mutual acquaintance: the battle against gender-based violence can only be won with the support of empathic and solid networks and alliances like this one, which encourage women who have long reckoned with despair not only to rewrite their own history, but also to look at humanity in a better light“.

ButanGas was founded in Italy in 1948 by Professor Iosif Constantin Dragan. Since its early years, the company has been able to carve out an important role for itself in the LPG market, organising distribution throughout the peninsula. ButanGas is a subsidiary of Veroniki Holding, founded in 2010 by Dr. Daniela Veronica Gusa de Dragan as the sole coordinating structure of all the Dragan Group companies. Veroniki Holding is currently present in 9 countries, where it operates with 36 entities and 1,420 employees. The Group’s core business is LPG distribution in 7 European countries: Italy, Greece, Romania, Germany, Poland, Serbia and Austria. For more information: www.butangas.it and www.veronikiholding.com

Molce Atelier – Sartoria terapeutica ETS is an association born from an invitation to tender of the Municipality of Milan co-financed by the European Community in 2021. It is aimed at women victims of violence, in fragile and insecure conditions, with the objective of promoting female autonomy – including economic autonomy – through learning a trade; promoting the empowerment and rehabilitation of female participants through manual work (in itself curative and able to increase self-esteem) and a path of psychological support; spreading the culture of non-violence in the area. Production, distribution and sale of the collections and garments produced for third parties create a positive circular economy system, both culturally and economically. Molce Atelier is part of Ethicarei, an ethical production chain guaranteed by the World Fair Trade Organisation. For more information: www.molceatelier.it

Photo: Stephanie Gengotti