April 7, 2008
Story and pictures : Doreen Allotey
A Belgian crew working on a documentary that would compare the lives of people who have spent the same time on the globe have chosen Kwabi Hanson, a barber in Accra, as part of the project. He was born on October 5, 1968.
The crew have only made contact with Hanson on phone so far but intend to visit the country to do more. The interesting thing for the crew is that Hanson has a job( barbering), which is very recognisable to the Belgian audience, even though there may be little differences as a consequence of where Mr Hanson lives —Ghana.
I traced Hanson to an area in Accra popularly known as Abuja and found his wooden kiosk situated on what can pass for a hill in a little settlement near one of Accra’s markets known as Agbogbloshie. His shop is almost opposite a pile of firewood for sale and among many other kiosks that serve as workplaces and sleeping places for most travellers from other parts of the country, who arrive in Accra in search of jobs. His shop has “No money , no woman” boldly inscribed in front of it.
Hanson says he loves this saying very much because he has found from his experiences in life that women, whether wife, sister, friend, girlfriend or daughter, love to go where there is money and that women could easily disown you in the absence of money. Guided by this saying , Hanson is not married but has a 16 -year- old daughter— Dorothy Hanson— who is living with his relatives in Aflao, the border town between Ghana and Togo.
Hanson charges 70 Ghana pesewas for a haircut, but at the end of it all, the earnings are woefully inadequate to take care of his basic necessities.
In his barber’s shop sat a huge black box serving as a loudspeaker that has the notice ‘For sale’. To complement his earnings, Hanson makes these boxes himself for sale. He makes them one after the other as they get sold out and advertise this ware when he blares music out of it.
He has another love, which is acting. He has been working with Prime Media in Accra on a number of productions and showed me an album of himself in various acting scenes.
One of his favourite movies is “Finished man”. On a daily basis he responds to demands of carving out a career and hobby in film acting. As soon as he hears of places where auditions are taking place, Hanson dresses up and heads there.
His daughter Dorothy and one of his six siblings were in the album. The picture showing his siblings was taken at Osino, a town in the Eastern Region of Ghana, where Hanson hails from.
His father, Mr Awuah Hanson, a retired teacher and his mother, Joyce Ama Serwaa, a trader in foodstuffs, live in his hometown.
Hanson has travelled widely across the country. This is because he followed his father anywhere he went on transfer to teach.
Hanson did not train to be a barber; it was something that came naturally to him while in school. He found himself being asked by friends and mates to give them a hair-cut. With time and practice, he perfected the art of barbering.
This act was to become a major earner of his daily bread.
Hanson’s real dream of becoming an accountant was cut short when he was involved in an accident a few days to writing his final examination at the Rans Business College at Osino. He stayed in hospital for six months waiting for the injury to his leg to heal. At that time, he didn’t believe he could walk again.
Hanson explains that his time in hospital disrupted his whole direction in life, and because his father had as many as seven children, including him, resources at home were always very little. He is sometimes very angry with his father for having many children.
“ Wishes are not horses for me to ride; sometimes I feel like giving up but what would I eat if I don’t go on,” Hanson urges himself to go on.
“ But I will never take part in any illegal business. I like my freedom very much, maybe as much as I love reggae music.”
Before going into barbering, Hanson was doing some work as a draughtsman in the very kiosk that is his barber’s shop today. He took part-time classes at the Super Techinical College in Asylum Down in Accra in that field of study. He learnt to do that manually and with time, this became outmoded, causing his customers to leave him.
Even though Hanson lives in Amasaman in the Greater Accra Region, he often goes home at the weekends because he cannot afford to use all his earning on transportation from his barber’s shop in Accra to Amasaman everyday. He attends a Pentecostal church and even though he does not attend very regularly, he believes “that is where my salvation is”.
Hanson is not very clear about the objectives of the documentary and how beneficial it would be to his life but is keeping an open mind.
On what the documentary seeks to achieve, an editor on the project, Annelore De Donder, says “It has to do with an interest in other customs and traditions”.
“The responses to the search from Ghana by the project in Belgium were so many that I even had to stop accepting people who kept on calling. Strangely, most of the people who called were born on May 3, 1981,” she said.
In all, 20 responses from Ghana were received by the project. Other people chosen for the project are two other men living in Chile and Canada. The episode will result in parallel portraits of these three men and their Belgian counterpart— but in very different places all over the world. All four of them were born on October 5,1968.
The interesting questions the documentary will seek to answer are : What have been their life experiences? Did the cultural context in which they grew up influence those experiences? Are there similarities in the lives of these people? Does it really matter where you are born?
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Informal training...Story of Philip Aidoo, the sucessful carpenter
March 13,2008
By Doreen Allotey
` Ghana’s education has been organised along two main lines—the formal and informal.
Informal vocation takes place in the form of apprenticeship agreements with craftsmen and trades people. Training is on the average, a period between two to four years but this depends on whether the “master” thinks that the apprentice has learned enough to become a senior and carry his good name wherever he or she goes.
The master also determines how long an apprentice who qualifies to be a “senior” would serve under him/her and whether the senior can work with him or her on commission or what is termed “work and pay” basis.
Thousands of Ghanaian youth are engaged as apprentices in the private or informal sector throughout the country. While some of these apprentices have formal education of some sort, others have never stepped into the classroom but are making it their own way through hard work, determination, discipline, humility and patience.
Apprenticeships available include fitting, spraying of vehicles, hairdressing, tailoring, masonry, welding, plumbing, shoemaking or how to mend shoes, catering and carpentry.
In the carpentry business, one of such persons is Mr Philip Aidoo who started his apprenticeship in 1984. He left his parents’ home in Mankessim in the Central Region to become an apprentice at the Akan Centre of Furniture in Mateheko in Accra for three years, after which his master graduated him as a senior. With this new status, Philip served his master for a couple of years.
He then worked at the centre, supervising some of the new apprentices for another couple of years. When he left the centre, it was to enable him work for different companies on different contracts for three years, gathering experience as he worked. He has since 1992 established a furniture shop at the Awudome Estates with the name Green Wood Furniture Works, opposite the famous Bongo Bar. He obtained his certificate of registration in 1993.
For the apprenticeship agreement, Philip’s parents paid ¢2,500, the equivalent of 25 Ghana pesewas today, to the master at the Akan Centre of Furniture. They also gave two crates of soft drinks, known in Ghanaian parlance as minerals, and a bottle of schnapps. But this was after he had completed a probation period of some weeks to enable his master to assess his character. He had just completed middle school form four then.
Philip had no one to stay with in Accra and, therefore, slept in his master’s shop, bathed and ate there.
“ It was quite difficult in those days. Money for food was hard to come by”, Philip recalls.
The furniture shop doubled as the classroom and a sort of boarding school for him. His determination to learn the trade was what kept him going. The other apprentices had places to live in Accra but out of the 24 of them, three dropped out along the way; they could not take the regiment of learning under the feet of their master.
As a master himself, Philip tries to maintain discipline at his shop and has trained more than 100 young men as carpenters. Currently, he has nine boys under his tutelage.
He has his own entry requirements which he says is similar to that of other masters of his status: A prospective apprentice has to attach himself to Green Wood for three months during which Philip would assess his character to find out if “he can really learn the job” and the apprentice must be above 16 years but not as old as 40.
“ It is quite difficult to teach the older ones”, Philip explains.
“ I once had a 40 year old man as an apprentice but he could not cope and fell out”, he said.
The apprentice then pays GH¢100 and presents two crates of minerals.
On acceptance of these, the apprentice has his colleagues to deal with; those who started learning before him; to them he owes GH¢20. That money is referred to as “Anbantem sika” for the new apprentice would surely learn something good or bad from them too and their co-operation would be invaluable.
Then comes the tools for the trade. “The apprentice should come with the basic; a hand saw, pincers, a hammer and planner”, Philip requires.
Philip does not countenance obstinacy and disrespect to seniors. Theft is an abhorrence and speaking politely is a must. Disregard for any of these attracts caning, suspension for a period or both.
Learning is by observation in stages.
“If it is making a table, I ask the apprentice to observe me making one. At another time I guide him to make the legs of the table and then we move on and on”, he said.
If after three years Philip is not satisfied with the progress of work, he adds on another year to make sure the apprentice is well baked. He has a name to protect.
During training, Philip occasionally fetes his apprentices when business is good. He makes sure they get health care during illness, but “ if it is a serious one , I send them to their parents,” he said.
On graduation, the apprentice turned “senior” pays to Philip another GH¢100, presents two crates of minerals a sheep. Graduation parties are optional but if the graduation coincides with a festivity like Christmas, the celebration is grand.
The challenges of the job as enumerated by Mr Aidoo include the high taxes to the Accra Metropolitan Authority, Internal Revenue Service, payments for utility services and the collection of waste products generated by the trade. At the end of the day almost every earning goes into such payments.
Mr Aidoo suggests that there should be some kind of assistance to enable carpenters acquire new technology in the form of machinery to make carpentry less labour intensive.
Formal and informal education bears a lot of similarities. Before the introduction of formal education in the 1800s, apprenticeship as a mode of training had already started. It’s contribution to national development is obvious and will continue to be with Ghanaians for a long time.
By Doreen Allotey
` Ghana’s education has been organised along two main lines—the formal and informal.
Informal vocation takes place in the form of apprenticeship agreements with craftsmen and trades people. Training is on the average, a period between two to four years but this depends on whether the “master” thinks that the apprentice has learned enough to become a senior and carry his good name wherever he or she goes.
The master also determines how long an apprentice who qualifies to be a “senior” would serve under him/her and whether the senior can work with him or her on commission or what is termed “work and pay” basis.
Thousands of Ghanaian youth are engaged as apprentices in the private or informal sector throughout the country. While some of these apprentices have formal education of some sort, others have never stepped into the classroom but are making it their own way through hard work, determination, discipline, humility and patience.
Apprenticeships available include fitting, spraying of vehicles, hairdressing, tailoring, masonry, welding, plumbing, shoemaking or how to mend shoes, catering and carpentry.
In the carpentry business, one of such persons is Mr Philip Aidoo who started his apprenticeship in 1984. He left his parents’ home in Mankessim in the Central Region to become an apprentice at the Akan Centre of Furniture in Mateheko in Accra for three years, after which his master graduated him as a senior. With this new status, Philip served his master for a couple of years.
He then worked at the centre, supervising some of the new apprentices for another couple of years. When he left the centre, it was to enable him work for different companies on different contracts for three years, gathering experience as he worked. He has since 1992 established a furniture shop at the Awudome Estates with the name Green Wood Furniture Works, opposite the famous Bongo Bar. He obtained his certificate of registration in 1993.
For the apprenticeship agreement, Philip’s parents paid ¢2,500, the equivalent of 25 Ghana pesewas today, to the master at the Akan Centre of Furniture. They also gave two crates of soft drinks, known in Ghanaian parlance as minerals, and a bottle of schnapps. But this was after he had completed a probation period of some weeks to enable his master to assess his character. He had just completed middle school form four then.
Philip had no one to stay with in Accra and, therefore, slept in his master’s shop, bathed and ate there.
“ It was quite difficult in those days. Money for food was hard to come by”, Philip recalls.
The furniture shop doubled as the classroom and a sort of boarding school for him. His determination to learn the trade was what kept him going. The other apprentices had places to live in Accra but out of the 24 of them, three dropped out along the way; they could not take the regiment of learning under the feet of their master.
As a master himself, Philip tries to maintain discipline at his shop and has trained more than 100 young men as carpenters. Currently, he has nine boys under his tutelage.
He has his own entry requirements which he says is similar to that of other masters of his status: A prospective apprentice has to attach himself to Green Wood for three months during which Philip would assess his character to find out if “he can really learn the job” and the apprentice must be above 16 years but not as old as 40.
“ It is quite difficult to teach the older ones”, Philip explains.
“ I once had a 40 year old man as an apprentice but he could not cope and fell out”, he said.
The apprentice then pays GH¢100 and presents two crates of minerals.
On acceptance of these, the apprentice has his colleagues to deal with; those who started learning before him; to them he owes GH¢20. That money is referred to as “Anbantem sika” for the new apprentice would surely learn something good or bad from them too and their co-operation would be invaluable.
Then comes the tools for the trade. “The apprentice should come with the basic; a hand saw, pincers, a hammer and planner”, Philip requires.
Philip does not countenance obstinacy and disrespect to seniors. Theft is an abhorrence and speaking politely is a must. Disregard for any of these attracts caning, suspension for a period or both.
Learning is by observation in stages.
“If it is making a table, I ask the apprentice to observe me making one. At another time I guide him to make the legs of the table and then we move on and on”, he said.
If after three years Philip is not satisfied with the progress of work, he adds on another year to make sure the apprentice is well baked. He has a name to protect.
During training, Philip occasionally fetes his apprentices when business is good. He makes sure they get health care during illness, but “ if it is a serious one , I send them to their parents,” he said.
On graduation, the apprentice turned “senior” pays to Philip another GH¢100, presents two crates of minerals a sheep. Graduation parties are optional but if the graduation coincides with a festivity like Christmas, the celebration is grand.
The challenges of the job as enumerated by Mr Aidoo include the high taxes to the Accra Metropolitan Authority, Internal Revenue Service, payments for utility services and the collection of waste products generated by the trade. At the end of the day almost every earning goes into such payments.
Mr Aidoo suggests that there should be some kind of assistance to enable carpenters acquire new technology in the form of machinery to make carpentry less labour intensive.
Formal and informal education bears a lot of similarities. Before the introduction of formal education in the 1800s, apprenticeship as a mode of training had already started. It’s contribution to national development is obvious and will continue to be with Ghanaians for a long time.
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