CHAPTER ONE
The study of this
research was based on street vending at Atimpoku, a town in the Eastern part of
Ghana. Atimpoku is an Akan area but because they are near the Ewe’s, most of
their inhabitants are Ewe’s. The area is made up of Adas, Akans and Ewes. They
are traditionally farmers. Although the people sell different items on the
street for traveling passengers, this study concentrate on the selling of Abolo, One Man Thousand
and Lobsters.
“Abolo” as it is a called was introduced by
Davi Afi popularly called Sam Nene (Sam’s mother) and was successful so she
passed it on to the daughter Dora Nyinpa, the current president of the Market
Women Association. “Abolo” itself cannot be really enjoyed without fish so a
woman named Tettey Mary also introduced the one man thousand and was later
joined by Esther Dogbaji. One Man Thousand is the name given to the wevi because
of its tiny nature and one cannot take it one by one but rather in handful as
in thousands.
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
} The
study aim to examine the reasons why the
people go into street vending
} The
products they mostly sell and the cost involve
} Profit
Maximization
} Risks
involved
} Future
of the business
METHODOLOGY
The methodology that was used for this
research was informal interview and participant observation under qualitative
research.
} Informal
interview: This method of interview was suitable for our study since most of
the vendors cannot speak and read English. We simply begin a conversation with
individual on friendly basis and then bring up the issue of our study along the
way, obtaining information through willing participation, personal experience
and opinion. The questionnaire was verbal but the questions were based on the
objectives of this research.
} Participant
observation: The rationale for using this method was for the group to have a
firsthand experience.
Time frame: A day
Location: Atimpoku
Targeted Group: street
vendors at Atimpoku
Sampling size: 15-20
people
CHAPTER TWO
DISCUSSION/ANALYSIS
At Atimpoku most of the traders are women and
female children. The ages of the adult women that sell ranges from 20 -50 years
and the children age from 11 – 16 years. Amazingly the children who sell are
students and speak very good English. Most of the vendors live in Atimpoku
while a few come from the neighboring town. Some of the traders have other
professions like hairdresser and dressmaker yet they venture into the business.
The Abolo is prepared
from corn. The corn is grind in a mill to get the corn dough. The corn dough is
mixed with water, flour, sugar, and yeast, and then it is put down for roughly
9hours. After that they put firewood in the oven to heat it for some time then
they knead the mixture of corn dough, sugar, flour and water nicely and put it
in a husk before it is put in the oven. After two hours the Abolo is ready and
it can only last for 2-3 days. The clay- made oven is called “Abolo Kpo”. The cost of each Abolo is GHC 20p.
Fig
1.1 Abolo kpo for baking Abolo
Fig
1.2 This a ready Abolo from Abolo kpo
Also the traders who sell the
wevi (one man thousand) buy it fresh from either Ada, or Akosombo and they fry
it with cooking oil. They add some ginger, salt to the frying oil to reduce the
scent of the fish before it is fried. Lobsters are also used alongside the one
man thousand. A fresh lobster is very black. After catching it they wash it and
add water and salt then they steam it for some time. It is then taken from the fire;
the water is poured from the lobster before it is fried to get that actual red
colour. The “One Man Thousand” ranges between GHC 50p to GHC 2 whilst the lobster
ranges from GHC1-GHC5. The lobsters are not normally counted but rather they
are packed into white polythene till it’s full. The lobsters can only last for
3days whilst the one man thousand can last close to 2-3 months. According to
Dora the lobsters are caught 3 at a time because it is believed that when you
catch beyond 3 you will drown or die.
Fig
1.3 The frying of wevi by a vendor
Most of the traders are
parents, they start vending around 5am
and end at 12midnight whilst the students amongst them come around 9am
to 10pm that is if they are not in school but when they are, they sell after
school. They sell to support their parents and some also sell for other people
to get money to pay their classes fees.
The traders stand along the street awaiting
vehicles who pass by. They run after each vehicle with ease as soon as the
vehicle stops to alight a passenger on board and most of at times because they
are all selling the same product it becomes difficult as to which seller a
customer buys from and this sometimes brings quarrels between the sellers. We
also observe that whenever they are selling they try as much as possible to
establish eye contacts, and smiles which make the customer feel like buying
even if he/she does not want to. They normally make profit between GHC25-GHC35
and they attributed it to politics.
Fig
1.4 The vendors struggling to sell for passengers
Fig
1.5 A student share experience in street vending
Some have been selling
as long as 20 years and it takes about two to three months or even less
depending on fast and aggressive you are to learn on the job.
Surprisingly, the vendors are very organized
most of them belong to the Market Women Association of which Dora Nyinpa is
their President and they pay a monthly due of GHC2 to GHC5. These dues are used
to support any of the members in case of any in eventuality.
Currently there are 500 registered members. They
are divided into two groups and they run shifts. If group A sells today, group
B sells the next day and that is how they run their days of selling. Each
person makes a very good use of her selling day because if you miss your day, you
cannot join the other group to sell.
During the lean season
the sizes of the “one man thousand” decreases. Their best sales are always
weekends and 25th-30th of each month. This is because it
is during this time of the month that workers are paid and many people travel
along their road to other towns. They account for low sales from 9th-15th
and on week days. On a bad day one can sell between GHC40-GHC50 whilst on a
good day they sell between GHC50-GHC100.
IDENTIFICATION OF A
VENDOR
The street vendors
belong to the Market Women Association which is headed by Dora Nyinpa. They pay
monthly dues between GHC2-GHC5. These dues are used to support members in times
of need or emergencies. When one dies within the organization, each person
contributes GHC2 to help the family of the deceased and this GHC2 is not part
of the monthly dues they pay. The organization is also in charge of dividing
the vendors into groups. They currently have two groups A & B and they run
shifts. The association makes sure that the groups adhere to the rules and
regulations in terms of which group comes Monday or the day after. Each member
of the Association has an identity card.
Fig 1.6 The Market Women
Association card
The
traders venture into street vending because of the following reasons;
Ø To
begin with, they go into the trade because of the extra income they make from
selling the Abolo and one man thousand. The income ranges from GHC25 to GHC35
per pan and a pan can contain about GHC25-35 worth of Abolo or one man thousand.
Ø Secondly,
it is passed on from generation to generation. This is because there is no
predominant job that fetches them more money than the selling of Abolo and one
man thousand. Parents normally start training their children as soon as they
are eleven upwards till they master and take care of the business themselves. So
when the mother is of old age she leaves the business in the hands of the children
and by so doing her also passes on the business to her wards.
Ø Traditionally,
they were mostly practicing subsistence farming but because of the predominance
of the dam and the Adomi Bridge, of which most fishes are found, they quickly
switched to Abolo trade and ever since then that has been the trend.
Ø Furthermore
some are also selling because they are unemployed so they volunteer to sell for
someone and also get some income to feed their family.
Ø Some
are also mandated to sell Abolo on the street. This reason is they have no
choice. Again that is the only source of income them and accessibility to raw
materials are very easy to come by since they prepare the Abolo themselves.
CHAPTER THREE
OBSERVATION/RECOMMENDATIONS
In our research, we
realized that if vendors were train to package their product well than what
they are doing, many tourists most especially the white will patronize them and
this will boost the economy of the nation.
Secondly, we suggest to
the government to take a keen interest in the business of the people and
provide a befitting place for them to market their products to traveling
passengers.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Sources
Individual vendors, Atimpoku. Interviewed by
the group,21 February 2009
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