Mobal: How a Love of Japan Created a Company JETs Know Well
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By Declan Somers, CEO of Mobal, and an Irish expat who has been living in Japan for a number of years. (Note: Mobal offers a discount to JETs and JET alumni. 50% off a voice product and 10% off any data product.)
Most former JETs will tell you the same thing:
Japan never quite lets go of you.
You might leave your contracting organisation, your apartment key, and your bike behind-but the country stays with you. In the food you miss. In the language you half-dream in. In the quiet pull to go back, even years later.
For Tony Smith, founder of Mobal, that pull never disappeared either. But the story of Mobal- one of the most familiar mobile providers to JETs didn’t begin in Japan.
It began in Malawi.
A Holiday That Changed Everything
Tony didn’t travel to Malawi on a mission.
There was no grand plan. No charity proposal. No business model.
He was on holiday.
What he saw there, though, stayed with him. Not statistics or policy failures-but people. Families. Children. Communities living with a level of poverty that was impossible to unsee once you had seen it up close. Tony returned home and did something quietly radical.
Without telling his company, without telling his staff, he began donating Mobal’s profits to charity!!
No press release.
No mission statement.
Just a personal decision that business should do more.
Then he went further.
Rather than simply donating money, Tony started using what he knew best-business- to create viable social enterprises in Malawi. The goal wasn’t aid. It was dignity: meaningful work, local employment, and long-term sustainability in the very community he had visited.
Mobal’s Secret Mission
For years, Tony kept this to himself. Until his accountant intervened.
Pointing out that companies donating to charity could legally benefit from tax breaks, the accountant asked a very practical question:
“Why aren’t you telling anyone you’re doing this?”
That moment changed Tony’s approach and he decided to come clean. He informed his staff how profits were being used, formally embedded giving into Mobal’s mission, an founded a separate charity in the UK to distribute funds properly and transparently.
What had started as a private moral choice became a public commitment.
Japan Enters the Story (Again)
Several years later, the charity began working with international volunteers, including Japanese volunteers visiting Malawi through the JICA programme, primarily on educational projects. Then disaster struck. In 2015, catastrophic flooding displaced huge numbers of people in Southern Malawi, including children who could no longer attend school-let alone eat regularly.
Volunteers gathered to ask the simplest, hardest question:
What can we actually do right now?
Tony-who had loved Japan his entire life and had a small office in Tokyo- made an unexpected suggestion:
Why not set up a charity in Japan to help?
That idea became Seibo Japan, a registered Japanese NPO.
School Meals & SIM Cards: What’s the connection?
In February 2016, Seibo Japan and Seibo Malawi, using funds donated from Mobal together began feeding displaced schoolchildren at nursery schools in Malawi. The problem? Almost nobody in Japan knew who they were.
In the early days, Seibo Japan operated out of Mobal’s Tokyo office, sharing space- and occasionally ideas. That’s when the team noticed something else: Mobal had a really good SIM card. Perfect for foreign residents in Japan. JETs included.
In an unusual pivot twist, Seibo Japan’s two staff members became SIM salespeople. Tony promised that every sale they made would be donated to the cause.
It worked. Sales took off-helped enormously by Mobal’s presence at JET orientations at the Keio Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku, a setting familiar to thousands of former JETs reading this now.
What began as a workaround became a partnership.
The lines between charity and company blurred, in the best possible way.
The Power of YouTube
Then came Makoto’s stardom in 2019.
If you’ve ever seen “A Day in the Life of a Japanese Salaryman” on YouTube, you’ve already met him-even if you didn’t know it.
👉 https://youtu.be/6tmjXp_AYg0
The video racked up 11 million views, countless comments, and international attention. What viewers didn’t realise was that Makoto wasn’t just a “salaryman”—he was deeply involved in Seibo Japan and the work happening behind the scenes.
After that, attending a JET orientation became… complicated.
Makoto couldn’t walk through the venue without being stopped for selfies, autographs, and the inevitable:
“Wait—aren’t you that guy from YouTube?”
Fast Forward to 2026
It’s now the 10th anniversary of Seibo Japan. Makoto continues to run the organisation, raising funds through donations and initiatives like Malawian coffee sales via the Warm Hearts Coffee Club.
Mobal, meanwhile, is still doing what it quietly set out to do all those years ago:
- Profits still go to charity
- Social enterprises still provide over 600 meaningful jobs
- More than 20,000 children still receive a hot school meal every day
- Education remains at the centre of everything
Today, the work at Mobal is led by Declan (formerly Makoto’s colleague at Seibo & ex–Malawi volunteer), working alongside Makoto- another example of how careers, causes, and Japan itself have a habit of pulling people back together in unexpected ways.
Good Coffee always leads to a Good Story
One of the most quietly powerful developments in Seibo Japan’s story in Japan came via coffee. Fully funded by Mobal and supported by the wonderfully generous Ataka Trading, Seibo Japan runs a non-profit Malawian coffee business that does far more than sell beans. Yes, Makoto and his team do of course sell coffee online but the real impact happens offline, in classrooms across Japan.
At the time of writing, over 40 partner schools are involved.
Seibo Japan volunteers work with students to organise Malawi coffee sales events- often as part of international studies, ethics, or global citizenship programmes. Students help plan the event, promote it, and run the sale themselves.
Along the way, they learn about:
- Fair Trade and ethical supply chains
- The difference between charity and social enterprise
- How business skills can be used for social good
- What life looks like for students their own age in Malawi
Every yen raised goes directly to charity.
And sometimes, the story doesn’t end there.
In some cases, students later travel to Malawi themselves, meeting communities, visiting schools, and seeing exactly how the funds they helped raise are used.
For anyone who once stood in front of a Japanese classroom as a JET and tried to explain “internationalisation” in real terms, this model feels instantly familiar—and quietly revolutionary.
Learn more here and reach out if you have a school to introduce!
👉 https://www.charity-coffee.jp/en/
Why This Matters to JET Alumni 🇯🇵
If you’re a former JET, this story probably feels familiar.
- A life changed by living abroad
- Small decisions that snowball into something bigger
- Japan acting as a connector between people, cultures, and causes
JET alumni continue to choose Mobal not just because it works but because it aligns.
- No confusing contracts
- English-friendly support
- Japanese phone numbers without the bureaucratic headache
- And purchases that directly support education and social impact
A Little Something Extra for JET Alumni (and a Coffee Warning ☕)
Because this story has always been intertwined with the JET community, there’s a small thank-you built in.
JET alumni—and their friends and family—can receive a 50% discount on a Mobal voice SIM or eSIM using the dedicated JET Alumni discount link.
And if you’re visiting Tokyo?
You’re very welcome to visit the Seibo Japan charity office, where there’s a good chance you’ll meet Makoto himself—though fair warning: you may leave with a bag of Malawian coffee beans, sold with enthusiasm, purpose, and just a hint of mischief.
It’s not a showroom.
It’s not a pitch.
It’s simply another example of how Mobal, Seibo Japan, and the JET community continue to overlap in wonderfully human ways.
Stay Connected. Do Good. Come Back to Japan.
Mobal is proof that not all meaningful projects begin with a business plan.
Sometimes they begin with a holiday.
A moment of discomfort.
And a decision to quietly do the right thing-until it becomes impossible not to share it.
For JETs who still carry Japan with them, this is a story worth staying connected to.
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Note: Mobal offers a discount to JETs and JET alumni. 50% off a voice product and 10% off any data product.
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