By Kimberley Cummins
Nikayla Nicholls turned her school assignment of creating a business into a true money-making opportunity.
Now, with Glamour Touch in tow, the 18-yearold is not only creating financial opportunities for herself but at the same time is inspiring others through her young entrepreneurship. During an interview with Barbados TODAY, Nikayla recalled that even before she knew Glamour Touch could ever become a reality and a success, she was like any other youngster in her position, just trying to pass a class.
“When I attended Graydon Sealy Secondary School, I did a subject called Small Business where we had to create a business and sell the items. The name of the business was Sensational Accessories [and] we sold wool puffballs and keyrings. We were also entered into the $20 challenge where we gained more experience on how to sell items,” she said.
After that class was complete and graduation was nearing, Nikayla, who hails from St. George, began to wonder what exactly she could do with the experience gained. After all, during the project, the concept of entrepreneurship grew on her, but she had never truly seen herself as an “entrepreneur”.
It took some advice and encouragement from close friends and family members to give her the push she needed. One of those people was her mother, Cafean Cox- Nicholls, who is also a businesswoman and would have witnessed first hand Nikayla’s growth and her blossoming business acumen during the execution of her class project.
“I like to be creative, so I continued with the puffballs and started resin crafts. Thinking of a business name was a bit tedious because I wanted to make sure no one else had the same name.
After coming up with the name Glamour Touch, I practised on how to use the resin for two months and started my business on May 1st 2021,” the young entrepreneur said.
The business consists of products such as resin letter keyrings and other keyrings of various shapes, coasters, ashtrays, jewellery boxes, afro combs and combs; she also makes custom frames and other customised products.
Now a sixth form student at the Christ Church Foundation School, Nikayla said she planned to expand into more shapes for resin and also be creative with other products that don’t involve resin.
She said: “This journey so far has been good but still difficult where persons will place orders and never come and collect and sometimes they are hard to sell because some would be custom made. Also, COVID-19 played a big role because I have to be careful whom I come into contact with. A good part of the journey is that I find enjoyment in making my products. In addition to the experience gained, trying new ideas some customers want has been fulfilling.”
Nikayla is a proponent of more practical hands-on training for business students in secondary schools. Acknowledging that some schools do offer training in Caribbean Vocational Qualifications (CVQs) in Business she believed that even with some experience gained, it is still not enough for some young persons to understand how to deal with customers or manage a business.
“The CVQ in Small Business is a good opportunity, and it teaches a lot, but it’s not at all schools, mainly it’s at schools with only returning 5th. With schools that go up to 6th Form, you’re only taught the theory once you are a student doing Business, but the experience is helpful because you would understand how to manage and run your own company and also how to deal with customers, complaints, queries and so on. I think that although all schools don’t teach Small Business, they can maybe introduce the $20 challenge for those who are interested in starting a business so they can get that practical experience,” Nicholls maintained. (KC)
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