Her dream was crashed along the way and the passion for the books evaporated when she took seed as a young student of the Mpraeso Senior High School (SHS) in Kwahu in the Eastern Region. She could not continue pursuing her dream of becoming the Barbara Gaisie of modern screens.
“Hannah, you have disappointed us…,” her teachers who looked down upon her as she wandered the streets of her hometown, Kwahu Atibie with her pregnancy whispered in her ears anytime they chanced upon her. She could hardly face the realities of life and had to drop out of school as a result.
“The beautiful lady who scored the highest grades in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in the Atibie township had brought disgrace upon her family,” many thought. In all these, one thing still remained, her creative abilities, the ability to bring into being that which never existed.
“I decided to try something new when I wanted a table at the time. And that is when it dawned on me that I can use car tyres to manufacture the very thing I needed…I tried my hands on it and it worked…,” Hannah Hema Akomeah said in excitement as she recounted her journey to fame. Although the initial work which she did with brand new car tyre, did not meet her expectation, she never gave up.
The sort of encouragement she had from colleagues after posting them on her Facebook wall was enough to cause her to explore her new field in search of more knowledge to improve her work. One work after the other, Hannah has bettered the art of recycling used vehicle tyres into beautiful furniture.
As she sat on one of the neatly adorned handicraft from her base in Ofankor, a suburb of Accra, Hannah recounted with pride how people have started patronizing her discovery. “I just sent some of my ware to Kade. I am also manufacturing another for another person who ordered on my facebook…,” she said.
Her passion for this job has led her into teaching at least nine (9) people how to manufacture tables and chairs with used tyres.
Support
Ms Akomeah who now applies her trade in an old building in the Accra suburb commenced her business with GHC 300. The lack of funds makes her sit on the floor to do her work on daily basis. “I have no shop, so all I do is to sit here on a daily basis recycling used tyres into furniture and you can imagine the pains involved…,” she narrated.
The manual way of executing this task has also slowed her work as she spends more time before coming out with quality work. She hopes to take her skill a step further and teach more young girls to make a living out this business, but lacks the necessary funds. She has therefore appealed to Government and other investors to come to her aid so she can be of help to several others.
“I need support to acquire a workshop and a money to be used as startup capital so I can expand the business and help other. I believe training people will be my way of helping reduce unemployment in the country…,” she appealed.
Watch Hannah Akomeah narrate her story and display her skill in an interview above:
