James Withana is only seven years old, and he is already an entrepreneur. This Primary 2 student at The Grange Institution (TGI) recently co-founded with his parents an online store. TGI is a member of the Crestar Education Group.

At age 7, James is already a budding entrepreneur

The online store www.jumjuminc.com was started, offering an array of lifestyle items designed with appealing, upbeat and positive energy words printed on colourful clothing (kids’ t-shirts), stationery (gift packs including pencils, erasers, sharpeners, rulers) and safety-wear (reusable, 100% cotton, face masks). Profits from the sales go to help under-privileged kids in Sri Lanka, James’ home country, with their educational needs.

James has put to good use the skills he acquired from Music, Art, Science, Math, English, PSPE, Languages, Coding and interesting IPC Units of Learning at The Grange, where he acquired an aptitude for pop-art and punchy words.

The IPC Units of Learning was one of James’ inspiration for his entrepreneurial idea

When asked why he decided to set up the online store with his parents as partners, James said, “It is about helping other kids through these super difficult times with some positive words using PopArt taught by my Art teacher, Mr. Slone Lim, at The Grange”.

“There are a lot of orphaned kids in Sri Lanka without school stationery, so I want to help them through JumJumInc.”

He said the idea for the online store came about while he was chatting with his dad one day about kids who started their own company.

“We also wanted to create one of our own by the end of 2020. I am very grateful to my Mum and Dad for the support. They helped me with everything. They helped me to bring this idea to life. Which is why ‘JumJum’ is made up of our names.”

Even though the online store is still at its early stages, James has bigger ideas for it. He wants to explore new designs and use new technology like holograms in the future for his products.

When asked what advice he would give his friends, classmates and other children who might also want to become a kid-entrepreneur like himself, James said, “Pick something that you really love to do and use it to help others. You will need resilience because at first if your company doesn’t workout, you can try and try again and maybe in the future you will find success.”

“There’s a lot of orphaned kids in Sri Lanka without school stationary. So I want to help them through JumJumInc” – James

The effusive James continues to be inspired and driven by the future-focused Cre8tors-in-Action©  educational philosophy at The Grange. ‘Active citizenship’ is one of the 8 core aimed at developing Global Citizens as follows,

  • Construction & Design
  • Respecting the Environment
  • Entrepreneurial Spirit
  • Active Citizenship
  • Teamwork & Partnerships
  • Original Ideas
  • Recognising Issues
  • Service Leadership

Meanwhile, James had earlier launched the online store by offering a special 15% discount to all families and friends of TGI by using the code ‘THEGRANGE’.