Peace

Through Prosperity

The Problem

Extremist organisations target the poorest members of marginalised communities across the globe. Once radicalised, these people cause more societal problems for the rest of the community.

The Idea

Lift the people out of poverty and out of the grasp of extremist organisations by giving the people the knowledge they need to succeed economically.

The Impact

Since 2012, PTP has transformed the lives of over 800 micro-entrepreneurs, increasing their profitability by 72% on average.

Mobius for Social Change

In 2010, Kubair Shirazee, a London-based Agile coach, faced the tragic news that his older brother had been murdered by an extremist organisation in Pakistan. This was a moment of pause for Kubair, it compelled him to explore how he could use his skills to help stop the spread of extremism in communities across the globe.

Inspired by the people he saw on the streets of Karachi who sell everything from fruit, to IKEA catalogues, he co-founded the non-profit, Peace Through Prosperity (PTP), which uses the Mobius method to help lift budding entrepreneurs out of poverty, and create their own narrative of change outside of extremist influences.

Though Kubair had originally planned to create PTP’s model by adapting Agile practices to include ideas from design thinking, lean, and business model innovation; much of the language and examples he found were just too software specific.

Enter Mobius

When he came across Mobius in 2011, he was impressed with how adaptable it was to their needs, and used it to both create the PTP model, and help run the programs.

Mobius’ simple and customisable way of getting to positive outcomes gives PTP the tools they need to create success stories in marginalised communities everywhere.

One such successful entrepreneur is Anwar, a barbershop owner.

When PTP first met Anwar, his salon consisted of a beat-up chair on the side of the road. His daily earnings were not even enough to provide food for his family, meaning Anwar could not educate his children unless he sent them to a free school (where the quality of education remains questionable at best). What’s more, Anwar had been forced to borrow money from loan sharks to survive.

The PTP team worked with Anwar to take him through their Mobius-led ‘mini-MBA’ program, then spent nine months coaching and consulting him to bring to life the concepts. Using a Mobius map, the coaches captured the key learnings as they experimented and measured their progress toward the target outcomes. Learning how to relate to and understand his own customers’ outcomes helped Anwar focus on the real problems holding him back. Each iteration of the Mobius loop transformed his business from barely scraping by to becoming a successful brick-and-mortar salon.

Anwar now employs four people. His two children are in a mainstream school, and he is financially independent. A brilliant result, especially when you consider Anwar now owns his narrative of change and is unlikely to be influenced by radical and extremist groups. Similar stories of PTP lifting up entrepreneurs across Pakistan and Yemen, prove that Kubair’s ambition to help people in marginalised communities step out on their own path to social transformation is being achieved. A phenomenal outcome that Mobius is proud to help map out a course for.

Get in touch for a Mobius coach to lead your next NGO workshop.