In Mexico, 41.9% of the population is poor (World bank, 2018) and 7 out of every 10 Mexicans find themselves in a situation of social abandonment.
We speak to Alejandro Souza, founder of Pixza, a Mexican social enterprise that is innovative in various ways. The first: they offer unique pizzas to the market made from blue corn. The second: they are a social empowerment platform aimed at boosting social mobility in young Mexicans in vulnerable situations. Who are these young people?
Pixza uniquely works with young people in social abandonment, which is to say, people between 17 and 27 years old and have at least one of the following characteristics: 1) time living on the street, 2) family abandonment, 3) educational difficulties 4) criminal history, 5) history of drug dependency and 6) migrants, refugees or deportees.
Those who go for a pizza in one of their restaurants, know that they are contributing a positive change. Of every 5 slices of pizza, 1 is delivered, free of charge to a young person in need. Once a week, Pixzas collaborators visit shelters where vulnerable young people sleep to deliver pizza, various motivational messages written by customers and something incredibly special: a job offer at Pixza.
Young people interested in the job offer, as well as achieving formal employment without going through a single selection process, also start a multidimensional empowerment program: the road to change.
The road to change consists of a 12-month journey that promotes profound personal and professional empowerment. The road to professional change revolves around the job at Pixza. The final objective is that by the 12th month, they occupy the position of supervisors. To achieve this, they implement the following initiatives:
· Rotation of roles within a local. The young people perform duties in sales, customer service, cooking and hygiene, in order to gain a wider, more integral view of business.
· Technical training in different positions.
· They move up every two months (if they meet the performance measures put in place). This also implies an increment in the level of responsibility and of course in their salary.
Meanwhile, they walk the road to personal change. The final objective of this road is to promote their integral well-being. This path has 3 goals:
1. Construct a personal and professional life plan that lets them go on to change their mentality from survival to one of long-term preparation that gives them back their enthusiasm.
2. Develop social-emotional abilities through concrete interventions, for example mindfulness, physical and mental games, coaching, football, an appreciation diary, or empathy exercises.
3. Encourage an independent life. In most cases, this means leaving the shelter and moving into their own apartment.
Also, all the young people that work at Pixza participate in a voluntary program. This entails going to deliver pizzas to other youths in abandonment situations. Going back to the shelters having gone through the Pixza experience is mobilising as it allows them to see the changes that they have made in their lives and at the same time, serve as living examples for others.
After the 12 months of work and having graduated from the road of change, Pixza links every young person with their next work opportunity according to the tasks they have enjoyed the most and their life plans.
To make the building of an independent life easier, each of them have the opportunity to raise funds. To do this they use one of the 17 existing pizza flavours or they co-create together with their teammates to come up with a new flavour and strive to sell as many pizzas as possible. Why?
That month they get 100% of their sales earnings. In the majority of cases, the money raised covers the first 3 months of their rent.
Under a win-win logic, Pixza helps other social enterprises that work to improve the quality of life in Mexico to raise money. For two months, a code is generated with the name of the chosen social enterprise. Of every unit sold in Pixza with this code, 25% of the profit goes to said organisation.
As of now, Pixza has delivered 15.000 free pizzas and 75 young people have gotten a formal job and walked the road of change.
