Selling on the streets of Windhoek

SOME of the biggest challenges facing Windhoek residents these days is how to tackle the scourge of unemployment.With a youth unemployment rate of 41,7%, many people, especially women have turned into vendors selling goods along the roads or outside supermarkets, and/or at open markets in order to put bread on the table.

Many are not members of any trade organisation and they make little profit in their informal cut-throat ventures they call ‘business’ because of the little difference it makes.

While in the past most vendors operated in Katutura, high urban migration and desperation for customers has forced them to venture into the city centre where vendors of a variety goods can be seen outside supermarkets and in corridors.

Most vendors trade in areas such as open markets and highly congested areas. In most cases they have not been allocated space to operate from.

Vendors in the CBD have in recent years occasional running battles with law enforcement officers.

For a single mother of five, Selma Paulus says street vending is the only option she has had over the years.

She came to Windhoek from the North in 2008 to look for greener pastures like many other people from her area but she could not get a job.

Paulus occasionally travels to Oshikango town at the border with Angola to order facial products, socks, soaps and other wares for resale at her stall in the Okuryangava township in Windhoek.

More often than not, she can be found at her stall with her nine-month-old daughter strapped to her back as she waits for customers.

Her other four children attend school in the North where they stay with their grandmother. She sends them whatever little money she can spare for their upkeep every month.

According to Paulus, this makes it difficult for her to expand her business as the little profit she makes is all used up in supporting her children.

“Being a single mother is tough. All the profit I make is used up immediately,” she said stressing that her vending activities had provided for her family over the past eight years.

However, Paulus said that she had thought that by now she would be having a small business structure of her own in Katutura.

“Sometimes I want to add new products for sale but I have no money to do that ,” she said.

She said she will not give up her hopes of her business growing one day.

Paulus says that most vendors fail to expand their business ventures because of limited funds as they live from hand to mouth.