Who said that locally made jewelleries are not as quality and flashy as those from top jewellery producing countries like India, China, Turkey and the United States? Well, then it means you have not seen the works of Ernestina Agyapong, the CEO of Ernie’s Classic Jewellery Production, who incorporates local adinkra symbols in her designs. Find out how she does it.
Background
Ernestina Agyapong, born in Nungua, Accra in 1981 is the CEO of Ernie’s Classic Jewellery Production. She is a past student of the famous Achimota School in Accra. After completing Achimota School in 1999, she furthered her education at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi and graduated with a degree in Industrial Arts (Metal Products and Design option).
She had a childhood goal of becoming a graphic designer, but her exposure to one jewellery manufacturer turned her dreams around.
Her first contact with jewelleries
It all began when Ernestina completed the senior high school. Students at the time used to stay home for more than a year awaiting their results to apply for tertiary institutions. That was when she came into contact with one man in the jewellery industry, Mr. David Tetteh, CEO of Emefa Jewelleries.
She recalls that Mr. Tetteh told her a lot about jewelleries and showed her some of his works which immediately triggered her interest in the business.
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The birth of the jewellery business
Shortly after coming into contact with Mr. Tetteh, she had to leave to continue her education at the KNUST. But she didn’t allow her dreams to die. She realised she already found a job. So, at every vacation, she went back to Mr. Tetteh to do an internship.
Even in the university, she did not relax. She recalls that during one of the Hall Week celebrations in school, she wanted to use the opportunity to showcase her talent. But she didn’t have enough money to buy raw materials.
“I didn’t want that opportunity to slip through my fingers. So, I told a friend to lend me GH?50 to buy raw materials so that we both share the proceeds that will come from the sale of the jewelleries. And she agreed. So, I made the jewelleries and exhibited them at the stand”
That event gave her a lot of confidence and also registered a mark of quality in the minds of the students who patronized it. Since then, she continued to make the jewelleries and sold to her colleagues.
She became more serious with the trade during her national service days. After work each day, she goes to work on her jewelleries and sold to close friends and other associates. Since she had no shop at the time, she started the business in her corridor at home.
Three years later, she was able to raise enough funds to acquire a shop of her own which is located at a suburb in Kumasi known as Sobolo junction, near the Kumasi sports stadium.
How she stands out
Ernestina is well aware of foreign competition in the industry where she operates. So, to beat competition, she employs an exciting feature which will appeal to indigenous consumers, and that has been her strength and hallmark to date. What is it? It is the addition of adinkra symbols which is uniquely Ghanaian.
“When I make my jewelleries, I design them with ‘adinkra’ symbols which the local consumers love because it gives them a sense of belonging. They know and understand the symbols and so they prefer those ones to the foreign ones.”
Challenges
Business has not always been rosy for Ernestina. She has gone through certain challenges as well. She recalls that financial difficulty is one of them. Because of the high interest rates in the country, small businesses shy away from accessing loans from the banks and other financial institutions, and Ernestina is no exception to that. She had to resort to saving from the sale of her products before she was able to raise money to even mount a shop.
Presently, there are machines she needs to help her expand. But lack of adequate capital has made it impossible for her to do so.
Another challenge she still contends with is inadequate human resource. “The sad thing is that, when you train others to help you, they leave eventually to set up their own businesses, thereby, creating vacancies in the business.”
She recalls times when all her apprentices left her and she had to work alone for some time before she had others to train.
There is another thing that has become a major problem in the jewellery industry.
“One big problem here in the jewellery industry is that it has now become difficult to get raw materials for production. The Chinese and Indian businessmen have invaded the market and are offering high prices to the small-scale miners for the gold. Because of this, we have to buy them at higher prices other than the world market prices.”
The contribution of education to her business
There are a lot of gold smiths and jewellers who do not really have much higher education. But Ernestina has a degree. How then has her educational background helped her?
“Education has helped me to see the value of the internet. I am able to advertise on social media platforms such as facebook, Instagram etc. But many of my competitors who are not at my level of education do not even know this.
When it also comes to customer service, I can say I am also ahead of my rivals who do not have higher education. Through education, I now know the value of customer service.”
Vision
Ernestina is concerned about the skyrocketing unemployment rate in the country. So, she has a vision of helping in the training of youths who are interested in learning how to make jewellery products. Through that, she believes those youths would create jobs for themselves and others to reduce the unemployment deficit in the country.
In fact, she also has the broad vision of helping change the face of the jewellery industry in the country to make it one of the vibrant in the world, considering the fact that all the raw materials can be found in the country.
Contribution to society
Because of Ernestina’s vision to train the youth, she has signed an MoU with KNUST to accept students for industrial internship in her company so that they can be trained in jewellery making.
Ernestina has also signed a contract which has offered her the opportunity to take 50 females to China to hone their skills in jewellery making.
She also takes some time off work to talk to tertiary students about entrepreneurship, which she believes, has helped inspired many people.
Advice to the youth
Ernestina wants to use her own life story to advise the youth to start a business with the little they have since it is difficult to access huge capital in the country.
“I advise the youth not to wait for jobs or try to have so much money before they think of starting a business. I started with just GH?60 and it has yielded good results. If you have a big vision, just start and nurture it and it will grow. You will eventually get support from others when you start.”
Ernestina is grateful to Technoserve Ghana for awarding her with £3,000 through the Enhancing Growth In New Enterprises (ENGINE) programme to expand her business.
BF&T
