Teni Agana — Mastercard Foundation Scholar shares her story on how she is creating job opportunities among Kayayoos (Head Porters)

Your name: Teni Agana

Where you are from: I am from the Upper East Region of Ghana

What you do: I am the Founder and Managing Director of Loozeele Initiative

How and when did you start Loozeele?

I worked as a kayayoo (head porter) to support myself through my secondary school education. I started this initiative to help girls like myself have a future. Most of my classmates including myself, dropped out of school to work as kayayei. some of the girls who came to work for the same reasons gave up along the way, for various reasons. Just think about it, you work so hard to make money, but you cannot buy nice clothes or get nice things as other kayayei. Instead, you must use it to pay for school which is not even a fun place to be. It’s just another place of hard work. The easiest option will be to just quit and focus on the business of making money which could mitigate and alleviate all your problems.

I vividly remember how we used to sleep on the street with our legs tied together to protect ourselves. Some of my friends were raped, ended up pregnant and others I don’t know their whereabouts. Fortunately, I got the opportunity to stop being a kayayei in order to further my education. I have spent years studying and have come to understand why being a kayayei is considered the optimal solution for women in the North. Consequently, I have envisioned and devised ways we could improve the North to help the kayayei stay and work to accomplish their dreams. This has giving birth to the Loozeele Initiative which means there is hope. Our motivation to be social entrepreneurs comes from the above existing problem. We are inspired to help these vulnerable girls become the great women they dream to be. We are following our dream to bring development to Northern Ghana whilst reducing poverty and promoting education.

What was your motivation?

I was angry and hurt when I went home in my third year at college and saw some of my friends whom I was working as Kayayoo with still doing it. I was fortunate to have had MasterCard scholarship to Ashesi, so how do we create opportunities for ourselves as a community. What can we do that will help us earn a living while planning for a better future? I am motivated by the youth in my community who believe that they can only make it when they migrate to the southern part of work in order to make ends meet and they face social, economic and health issues associated with the work and this makes it dangerous. I am motived to give them hope, let them know that everything is possible if they are ready and willing to work for it. I want them to know that they could not choose who they are born to or where they came from but they have the power to determine who they want to be, through Resilience, hope and a lot of hard work.

What role did MCF play in supporting your journey;

The MCF community at Ashesi have been very supportive of this initiative and my girls and I are very grateful. From teaching them entrepreneurship and leadership to volunteering to sell and create market for their products. The MCF facilitations have also been there for us every step of the way advising, marketing and even buying our products to help support our girls.

• What are some of the Challenges you have faced on your journey?

Loozeele Initiative was birth from my Thesis projects, after my graduation I was very excited to start this journey. I wanted to start it immediately to help support the girls but then there was no money to help me to start this dream of mine. However, I believe that everything is possible if you are willing to work for it and fight for it. So I worked for a year and saved enough to start Loozeele with just two girls. One of our biggest challenges has been financial constraints. We need money to buy simple machines that will help us to produce efficiently and effectively. For now, we are doing what we can with what we have to make space better than it was to help support our girls.

The second challenge is getting market for the product they sell. It is very difficult for them to get a source of income to support themselves and their families if the product they made is not sold. Currently that has been one of the challenges, if we get a bigger market to support our girls, than more girls can be included.

The third and by far the biggest challenge is a mindset change. It is very difficult to convince a young girl working as a Kayayoo in the streets of Kumasi and Accra that she should go home and that there is a better life for her back home. When she had lived that life and knows that life back home is a struggle.

What impact have you made?

We have seen the impact made on our girls as well as their families. Currently, twenty-five (25) girls who were working as kayayei in Madina, in the Greater Accra and Bantama in the Ashanti Region of Ghana are back to the Upper East region. They are currently making a living in the Upper East region of Ghana with the skills they have in making baskets, bags, smocks and shea butter.

After school, they make smocks and baskets and send their finished products to us on a weekly basis. We sell it and 5% of the revenue is contributed towards our annual educational program. 20% of their profit is saved for school needs and other unforeseen circumstances. Some of the girls that we are working with confirmed that they even make more in working with Loozeele than working in the Accra as kayayei, taking into consideration their cost of living. For example, in Accra or Kumasi, they have to buy water to bath, pay to bath and also buy water to drink. However, in the Northern part of Ghana, they do not pay for water. With this, they spend less to live.

Looking back, what would you have done differently?

I think I would have started my initiative when I was a student rather waiting after graduation. This is because, as a student, there are a lot of support systems to help and guide you through your journey, even financially. There are some grant opportunities that only student can tap into and not graduate. Moreover, there are staff, faculty and even student available to support you. But after graduation, you are on your own to figure things out by yourself.

• Any advice to other young graduates and Scholars who are still in school?

We getting this golden opportunity as Mastercard scholars was not a mistake and we have a collective responsibility to give back to our communities more than we take from it. Let do our best to create the change we went to see and remember that, helping people is not a burden, it is an opportunity to impact someone’s life.