{"id":51781,"date":"2026-02-02T10:03:49","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T14:03:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=51781"},"modified":"2026-02-12T10:54:53","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T14:54:53","slug":"mobal-how-a-love-of-japan-created-a-company-jets-know-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2026\/02\/02\/mobal-how-a-love-of-japan-created-a-company-jets-know-well\/","title":{"rendered":"Mobal: How a Love of Japan Created a Company JETs Know Well"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Declan Somers, CEO of Mobal, and an Irish expat who has been living in Japan for a number of years.<\/span><\/em>\u00a0(Note<\/span>: Mobal offers a\u00a0discount to JETs and JET alumni<\/a>. 50% off a voice product and 10% off any data product.)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most former JETs will tell you the same thing:<\/p>\n\n\n

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Japan never quite lets go of you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019t begin in Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It began in Malawi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Holiday That Changed Everything<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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Tony didn\u2019t travel to Malawi on a mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was no grand plan. No charity proposal. No business model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was on holiday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without telling his company, without telling his staff, he began donating Mobal\u2019s profits to charity!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No press release.
No mission statement.
Just a personal decision that business should do more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then he went further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than simply donating money, Tony started using what he knew best-business- to create viable social enterprises in Malawi. The goal wasn\u2019t aid. It was dignity: meaningful work, local employment, and long-term sustainability in the very community he had visited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mobal\u2019s Secret Mission<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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For years, Tony kept this to himself. Until his accountant intervened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pointing out that companies donating to charity could legally benefit from tax breaks, the accountant asked a very practical question:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy aren\u2019t you telling anyone you\u2019re doing this?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That moment changed Tony\u2019s approach and he decided to come clean. He informed his staff how profits were being used, formally embedded giving into Mobal\u2019s mission, an founded a separate charity in the UK to distribute funds properly and transparently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What had started as a private moral choice became a public commitment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Japan Enters the Story (Again)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Volunteers gathered to ask the simplest, hardest question:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What can we actually do right now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tony-who had loved Japan his entire life and had a small office in Tokyo- made an unexpected suggestion:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why not set up a charity in Japan to help?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That idea became Seibo Japan, a registered Japanese NPO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

School Meals & SIM Cards: What\u2019s the connection?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the early days, Seibo Japan operated out of Mobal\u2019s Tokyo office, sharing space- and occasionally ideas. That\u2019s when the team noticed something else: Mobal had a really good SIM card. Perfect for foreign residents in Japan. JETs included.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an unusual pivot twist, Seibo Japan\u2019s two staff members became SIM salespeople. Tony promised that every sale they made would be donated to the cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It worked. Sales took off-helped enormously by Mobal\u2019s presence at JET orientations at the Keio Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku, a setting familiar to thousands of former JETs reading this now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What began as a workaround became a partnership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lines between charity and company blurred, in the best possible way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Power of YouTube<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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