From the streets to the University: Teni Agana's journey

The Success Drive Show on Campus Radio Ghana gets better by every edition. Indeed there have been different personalities who have shared their struggles en route to achieving excellence in academics, entrepreneurships, entertainment and host of other fields. This week's edition of Success Drive show hosted Ms. Teni Agana, a promising lady who worked as a kayaye so she could fund her education and make sure her children and others' children don't suffer the ordeal she had to face along her path to grace. Ms. Agana's presence on Success Drive is really worth highlighting as you may learn while you read this.

Born in the Upper West Region of Ghana to a truck pusher as a father and a "chop bar" worker as a mother, Teni Agana's life was entangled in a difficult puzzle when she lost her dad at a very young age. Her uncle offered to lend a hand to her family by aiding her enroll in hairdressing or sewing.

Teni realized from her grades that she could rub shoulders against the more fortunate ones when she sat for her Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), her background shouldn't hinder her burning desire for higher education, she obstinated. It was then that young Teni decided to find the means to affrord her education. Bantama market in Kumasi was where Teni sought greener pastures due to the bloom the kayayes experienced there or so as she might have heard.

Reflecting her time working as a kayaye with Success Drive hostess Ms. Emefa Adawudu, Ms. Teni recounted that she made about ¢ 15 every day. Their (kayayes) situation got even bitter at night, she said. They improvised basins as pillows and tied their legs together so they could have an advantage in defending themselves against rapists. As if that is not enough, they would take turns staying awake to keep watch over each other. There were also times when shop owners would chase them away from spending nights at their premises. Those were obviously hard times and others had no better choice than to give up and return to the scorching sun in the north.

For Ms. Teni Agana, her inspiration to relentlessly pursue her goals was drawn from a photo she had found on the floor during her childhood. The photo was of someone on their graduation day, dressed in a luxuriant gown of academia. That was who Teni wanted to be because it was better than what reality had shown her to be in life. She had since kept the photo as a reminder of what she'd like to be.

Her journey to Ashesi university is quite miraculous. All the while Teni was working as a kayaye, her mother was also working at a chop bar so she could make ends meet for her family. It was during their last week working at the market that her mum was hit by a vehicle and the money they had saved was used to cater for her mum's medical bills.

This appeared as doom in their eyes but before God, it was a disguised blessing. At the hospital, a woman was seriously searching for a donor whose blood would match her daughter's. Ms. Teni, belonging to the O positive group offered to help. This woman who tasted Teni's open-handedness was the head of an organisation that funded female education. With aggregate 9 from high school, it was easier for Teni to benefit from the scholarship to pursue tertiary education at Ashesi university.

During her time at Ashesi, Ms. Teni Agana said that she learnt that the past has no power over one's future, that it is just an experience which you can always change if you stay focused. She added that she's inspired by her background and looking back at where she comes from, nothing has really changed since her childhood. This situation is something she would want to change.

Answering the question of what she wants to do after school, she told Ms. Emefa Adawudu and her audience that at Ashesi, she formed a team that has managed to build a school for the kayaye's child in Madina. She's currently embarking on a project that seeks to provide entrepreneurial and literacy opportunities in the northern part of Ghana. The central idea behind the project, she says is to provide job opportunities so as to stopgap the heavy migration of the northern youth to the south that exposes them to unbearable situations. The project, dubbed "loozeele" means there is hope.

Ms. Teni Agana dreams of owning a school for kayaye in the north. She is of the popular view that education is the key to reduce poverty in Africa and also holds the perception that developing the north is the only way to reduce rural-urban migration. Ms. Teni is also determined to touch and change the lives of others especially the less privileged.

Ms. Emefa Adawudu's guest also confessed her love for Ms Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian writer and feminist when asked who she would want to meet should she be given the opportunity. She also disclosed that there was a sparkling relationship with a guy that offers her emotional and other forms of support.

In her final words, she said, "We do not choose who we are born to or where we come from but we can choose who we want to become in future through hardwork, focus, tenacity and a lot of hope. We are all special and unique in our own ways and we can do anything that we set our minds to. Let's try to improve ourselves and that of others around us. We all have a responsibility of making the world a better place for all of us". She is inviting ideas and supports from concerned individuals and organisations to help uplift the loozele project.

By: Sakor Inusah Musah
(Campus Radio Ghana)