Nikesha Punch is one of those scores of emerging local creative souls in the Guyana manufacturing sector whose opportunities to ‘parade’ their products on the local market, are these days, constrained by the persistence of the COVID-19 pandemic. The strictures of social distancing have reined in the assorted Open Air Markets and other public events that would have allowed her a measure of relatively inexpensive product promotion. These days, she must take what she gets and her primary challenge, these days, has to do with the fact that while the market has ‘gone to ground,’ so to speak, her savings are dwindling. Still, she is biding her time.
Nikesha’s Punchline Soaps, her first foray into the manufacturing sector emerged from her personal research into soap-making. The story, however, does not begin there. As a Grade Ten student at Campbellville Secondary School she was introduced to the discipline known as Agriculture Science. Afterwards, she headed for the Guyana School of Agriculture where she obtained a Diploma in Agriculture. Two years of employment in the private and public sectors were followed by entry into Sterling College in Vermont, USA where she read for a Degree in Sustainable Agriculture.