By Akola Thompson
From humble beginnings in the community of Matthew’s Ridge, Barima Waini, Region one, 26 year old Nikita Inniss has bested the odds set out against her and has become one of the very few female aircraft technicians in the country.

Childhood, said Nikita, was basically “fun filled days” as she was a very active child and took part in every activity she could such as schools and church concerts along with school sports, as she

was an athlete. Games such as cricket, circle tennis, war-break and hopscotch are all games, which bring back find memories of playing with her brother and friends.

Teenage years saw her becoming an active dancer and camper. She attended the National School of Dance for a year and then continued at the Mystique Dance Group for three years. Camping, she said, was mainly through a group she was a part of, the President Youth Award of Guyana (PYARG).

Nikita said that as a child, she always envisioned herself as either being a future doctor, teacher or pilot as those were the most potent needs in her community and she felt the desire to give back to a space which has made her into a respectable, contented woman of integrity.

She said that while her childhood dreams of being a doctor or pilot were not realized, she believes she has somewhat partially fulfilled her dream as without maintenance “we wouldn’t be able to get goods and services to remote areas.”

Despite her plans and best intentions however, fate took Nikita in another direction as she was given the opportunity by a combination of people to study engineering and she decided to “take the leap of faith and join the aeronautical engineering school.”

“Engineering was nowhere on my list,” she admitted as her mind was focused on the pilot school, “ I went in for information on the engineering school after my aunt’s urging, while there the principal persuaded me to take an aptitude test. A week later I got a call saying I passed and that I could bring in my necessary credentials.”

While she was proud of her accomplishment, it was on her father’s urging that Nikita decided that she should study engineering, as while it was not flying, she would get the opportunity to work around planes.

She would later acquire her License without type rating, Airframe and Power plant (A & C License Issued by the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority), an accomplishment that Nikita is up to this day, very proud of.

Now living in Diamond on the East Bank Demerara, Nikita has been working as a technician at the local airline, Air Service Limited, from the age of 22.

Despite working in a male dominated profession, Nikita insists that while she knows many women have had bad experiences with male chauvinism, she has been lucky to escape that. “If it were to occur I would choose to let my work and my abilities transcend any attempt to lower my self-esteem however,” she said.

Despite her love for her job however, Nikita said that like many, she has faced many challenges but she has never allowed the challenges to get the best of her. “I use the challenges to get the best of me, I use them as a motivation.”

Commenting upon the level of encouragement girls in technical areas receive, Nikita opined that there is definitely something being done to encourage girls into areas such as engineering. “When I attended the engineering school there weren’t many girls, in fact, I was the only female in my batch, but there were a few in the other batches.”

Currently, there are more than 14 girls attending the engineering school, something that Nikita holds as “a major improvement.”

Compared to ten or five years ago, said Nikita, the progress of gender equality has certainly quickened its pace as more and more women are being employed in areas that were and in many ways still are considered to be “male jobs,” such as engineering, construction and masonry. “Many more women are holding managerial positions in major companies and there has been much more emphasis on female empowerment, which according to surveys, has resulted in much more women being qualified and employed than men.”

To young women out there, said Nikita, “the sky is the limit- our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always try just one more time.”