Abstract
This paper explores entrepreneurial opportunities among youth engaged in vending and hawking on the streets of Accra, Ghana. It ascertains challenges faced and strategies adopted to address them. Street vending and hawking is assuming increasing dimension due to paucity of formal job opportunities in Ghana. Hawking and vending of newspapers, textbooks, toffees and fruits are informal entrepreneurship opportunities on our streets. The study sought for short to medium and long-term plans the youth have to innovate the entrepreneurial opportunities in trades engaged in. It used youth hawkers operating at Okponglo and Dzorwulu junctions. Fifteen (15) youth participated in the study. It is a qualitative study which adopted purposive and convenience sampling procedures in selecting the sample. Thematic, analytical, descriptive-narrative interpretivist approaches were adopted in presenting the results. Crossing roads, chasing moving vehicles, operating in the scorching sun and torrential rain impacted negatively their health. It also emerged that the youth have plans to innovate and grow businesses, but the high cost of credit is a barrier. Lack of collateral for credits came up. Government quasi-financial institutions and non-bank financial institutions should be proactive in providing financial, advisory and technical support to the youth to exploit entrepreneurial opportunities in Ghana.
Highlights
The building of youth entrepreneurship mindset is currently receiving some attention in Ghana
Many young people have moved from the rural communities to the national capital, Accra, for jobs which are largely non-existent. These difficulties confronting young adults in Ghana are manifesting themselves in increased vigilantism, hooliganism, armed robbery and wanton destruction of fertile arable lands and forest vegetation cover through ‘galamsey’ activities in our communities
The main objective of the study is to ascertain from vendors and hawkers entrepreneurial opportunities, challenges and strategies adopted to surmount challenges encountered
Summary
The building of youth entrepreneurship mindset is currently receiving some attention in Ghana. This is probably because the public sector is unable to employ many young adults, who are willing to work, but lack job avenues. Many young people have moved from the rural communities to the national capital, Accra, for jobs which are largely non-existent. These difficulties confronting young adults in Ghana are manifesting themselves in increased vigilantism, hooliganism, armed robbery and wanton destruction of fertile arable lands and forest vegetation cover through ‘galamsey’ activities in our communities. In the midst of these seeming insurmountable difficulties, some of the adventurous young adults have taken to street
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