Putting Entrepreneurship Where it Belongs
- Donna Rosa
- Aug 2, 2016
- 3 min read
Updated: May 10
Shortly after I returned home from a consulting assignment in Liberia, I was working in my office and happened to look out the window. A groundhog was waddling straight down the middle of the street. In my neighborhood in suburban New Jersey this is a WTF. And that was my first thought.
But I’m quite certain that no one else on Madison Street would have come up with my second thought: someone in Liberia could get $20 for that.
That’s what my driver told me on one of my trips to the field. I had asked about the critter we sped past along the road, slung upside down by its little spread legs, fastened to a y-shaped stick. I remember thinking how working in developing countries alters your brain in strange ways.
But there was something else going on, and it bothered me more than my own reframing of a groundhog as income: the opportunistic peddlers were children.
The roadside pineapple
On another field trip during the same assignment I was waiting in the car during a roadside stop. Three young girls approached and asked if I wanted to buy a pineapple for $5. This was an astronomical amount, especially in Liberia.
When I said no (and after some discussion) one of the girls feigned a dramatic pout and pleaded, “But I am hungry.”
I peered at her in jest. “Then why don’t you eat the pineapple?”
Taken aback for a second, they howled with laughter.
Busteeed.
The uncomfortable truth
These sales children are everywhere in the developing world. They should be in school. Many toil at terrible jobs for little or no pay.
There are budding young entrepreneurs in all countries, and we love that. We romanticize it, even. We post the stories. We celebrate “hustle.” We talk about grit. But the “lemonade stands” of Liberia (and elsewhere) are a far cry from those on Main Street USA.
For the poor it isn’t about fun; it’s survival. If these kids manage to earn anything at all, it’s not pocket money for video games. It may mean they get to eat that day.
These are the youngest entrepreneurs of necessity.
Micro- and small enterprises create growth, BUT not like this
Micro- and small enterprises can create economic growth and prosperity, and I believe deeply in their potential. But not this way. Not through children carrying the burden of household income.
If we want to put entrepreneurship where it belongs, we must empower their parents (as well as youth and young adults) with business skills. So making money doesn't fall to kids.
If parents have profitable, stable enterprises, they can pay for school fees, uniforms, and supplies. That way children can do what they’re supposed to do: attend school (assuming school is available) so they can build options beyond survival-selling.
That’s putting entrepreneurship where it belongs: in the hands of adults, as a means of building stability, not in the hands of children with few options.
Is child street selling always harmful?
The reality is complicated. Families make choices under pressure. But child selling often correlates with missed schooling, increased vulnerability, and long-term limits on opportunity.
the difference between “child entrepreneurship” and child labor
Child entrepreneurship can be a learning opportunity, but when a child is selling because the household needs income to survive, it is child labor. Context matters, and in low-income countries it is almost always the latter.
Watch a video about children working in Bangladesh:
Micro-enterprises can absolutely create growth and prosperity, but not when the burden lands on children, and not when adult enterprise is denied skills, capital, and sustained support.
Children selling on the roadside aren’t chasing a dream. They’re trying to eat, today. It’s not “entrepreneurship education.” It’s poverty speaking.
So yes, let’s support entrepreneurship. But let’s put it where it belongs: in viable, well-supported enterprises that generate income, keep kids in school, and create a future where selling is a choice, not a necessity.
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