From Makola market to Makola Institute
When Mrs Comfort Oduro-Nyarko was asked to introduce a visiting professor who was a guest speaker at a business seminar at the Pentecost University College in Accra last year, she had no idea of the magnitude of business prospects that five-minute duty held for her.
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She was initially reluctant to introduce the professor because the programme organisers asked her to do it at very short notice. That aside, she also felt there were younger and more eloquent students around to shoulder that unique responsibility.
As she picked the prepared information about the guest speaker from one of the event organisers, Mrs Oduro-Nyarko, who had just completed a Master’s degree in International Accounting and Finance, pondered over what was in store for her as she had sold almost everything she owned to pursue the course.
“Honestly, I was not in the right frame of mind for such a duty but I just decided to please the organisers and in a short time, I had memorised everything they had written about the professor,” she told The Mirror.
Professor Joseph Ofori-Dankwa, a Professor of Management at the College of Business and Management, Saginaw Valley State University in the United States, was impressed with the enthusiasm with which Mrs Oduro- Nyarko introduced him to the audience.
Mrs Comfort Oduro-Nyarko
“I had never met someone so enthusiastic and passionate about such a simple duty. I watched and listened carefully to her and when she was done, I realised I was not the only person who had noticed her outstanding performance because of the resounding applause from the crowd,” Professor Ofori-Dankwa said.
After the event, Professor Ofori-Dankwa engaged Mrs Oduro-Nyarko in a conversation which led to the birth of the Makola Institute.
From Makola to classroom
Before pursuing her first degree at the Regent University College of Science and Technology, Mrs Oduro-Nyarko owned and operated three shops at Makola in the Central Business District of Accra.
Together with her husband, they ran the shops till March 2007 when they were confronted with litigations over the ownership of the shops.
She recounted that after months of ups and downs in court, they had to give up as they could not raise enough money for legal charges. During that same period, she was chased by banks who had given her loans to support her business.
Subsequently, she had to sell most of her properties to repay the loans. She relocated to the Kaneshie Market also in Accra only for her to be slapped with another misfortune: a fire outbreak ravaged her entire shop.
“ I was devastated at this point. Almost everything I owned had vanished in a few months. I didn’t know how I was going to support my family so I made up my mind to sell the few properties we had and further my education.”
She decided that after school, she would transfer her knowledge on business survival and growth principles to fellow traders in the Makola market and beyond.
The Makola Institute
According to Mrs Oduro-Nyarko, on the day she was approached to introduce Professor Ofori-Dankwa, she had wondered how her dream of imparting business skills to traders would materialise as she had acquired further knowledge but didn’t have an idea where funds to start her project would come from.
“I remember that the day we sold our last car, my son cried. He didn’t understand why we should dispose of all our luxury just for education so I kept asking myself how I was going to tell my family that I needed more money to proceed.”
However, after a short interaction with Professor Ofori-Dankwa, he decided to support and put a structure together for what has come to known as, the Makola Institute.
The Makola Institute would provide basic management and technological skills to market women and small-scale enterprise operators
The launch in Accra recently, Professor Ofori-Dankwa said the institute would provide basic business management and technological skill in local languages to market women and small-scale enterprise operators.
It would also provide consultancy services in accounting, stock management, loan procedures, insurance policies, internal control, tax and VAT.
“From Mrs Oduro’s experience, I realised if she had a little support in those times, she wouldn’t have gone through all that hardship. We are looking forward to providing very basic technological and management skills to traders in the market.
“We have used the word “Makola” metaphorically to represent all the other markets in Ghana. The market is the lifeline of the economy. We also know there are some principles that these market people know which can help the corporate world,” Professor Ofori-Dankwa said.
He pointed out that they had already done many consultations with some key stakeholders and the programme was ready to take off.
“We understand that these traders have different issues so the first thing we would do is an “X-ray” test to diagnose the problem and know what exactly the individual needs are. We have also engaged experts who are fluent in four local languages to make communication easy,” he explained.
Mrs Oduro-Nyarko, who was full of praise for the professor’s support, encouraged shop owners to enrol themselves and their assistants unto the programme.
She explained that classes would be organised on Sundays so that working hours would not be interrupted.
Currently, the institute has two offices at the Makola and Kaneshie markets with plans to extend services to more major markets in the future.
