Women in the rural and sub urban areas of the nation are noted for carrying babies on their backs to markets and farms. The practice is meant to keep the children safe and sound as their mothers go about their domestic chores, farming and commercial duties.
The bags known as ?backpack? are largely meant to store safely computers and notebooks for students. But these people mostly young men and women have other uses for the bags. An interview with some of the students has revealed that in addition to computers and notebooks most of them keep their phones and documents such as passports and identity cards safely for use in times of need.
One of the ?bag carrying student? at the University of Ghana Solomon Danquah revealed that the bags have served the students so well over the years while they move on the educational ladder adding that some of them consider the bags as their best companions as they serve as their storage facilities for their valuable books and other educational items.
Some of the students go to school in their self driven cars, but they still find the ?backpacks? very useful as they move with them from one lecture halls to another while their cars are packed. The bags are not only used by college students but toddlers and pupils from kindergartens to other primary to junior and senior secondary schools.
To these categories of students they do store foods in the bags to be consumed during lunch breaks. The sale of these bags that keep rising by women and shop owners is a lucrative business which has become very popular during the school holidays and when schools are about to be opened.
With regard to workers especially offering national service and junior workers, the bags come handy as they also store their laptops and other valuable items needed for the days at their workplaces and field. Again they carry the bags to be able to keep all their valuable items in one pack safely.
Solomon confessed that sometimes the bags are so loaded that they become very heavy for the students and workers to carry around. In spite of the inconvenience the bags give us while we board vehicles to and fro work and our campuses we have no choice as we carry them.
Alhaji Alhasan Abdulai
Executive Director
EANFOWORLD FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
P.O.BOX 17070AN 233244370345/23326370345/ 233208844791/0274853710
[email protected] /[email protected]
