Jumana Al Darwish

Jumana Al Darwish is an award-winning social entrepreneur and philanthropist. She is the co-founder of the international franchise, The Happy Box, and the founder of global brands, The Happy Studio, and Happy Hearts Global.

Being the visionary and creative member of the team, she brings an international perspective as the daughter of a UN diplomat. Inspired by the work of her late father, who changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of children and families all over the world, she vowed to embrace a similar journey and become an active global change maker.

Jumana holds a Bachelor’s degree in Community and Ethnic Studies from Concordia University in Canada, a Master’s of Science in Evidence-Based Social Intervention from Oxford University in the United Kingdom, and a Strategy Execution Program Certificate from INSEAD in France. With over 10 years of experience in the public and nonprofit sectors, Jumana’s skills as a philanthropist, strategist, and fundraiser seemed like the perfect fit working as the Head of Corporate Planning and Development at Dubai Cares. Following the birth of her daughter, Ayla, she began to realize in her pursuit towards happiness, that family quality time was the key anecdote.

Jumana embarked on her first entrepreneurial journey with her sister in law educationalist Linda Darwish and co-founded The Happy Box in 2014. The social enterprise aims to instill the love of art and creativity amongst children and promote family bonding through educational arts and crafts activity boxes.

In 2017, and coinciding with the The Happy Box’s third anniversary, Jumana opted to expand on the success of the company and establish a secondary lifestyle brand, The Happy Studio. Besides being home to The Happy Box factory, The Happy Studio a community space that encourages social interaction between strangers by offering curated arts and crafts workshops and interactive installations, targeting all members of the community, regardless of age or gender.

Jumana’s happy venture would not have been complete without her going back to basics and embracing her philanthropic roots, which is what led her to the establishment of Happy Hearts Global, a foundation currently being registered under the UK Charity Commission, which aims to provide children, and in particular girls, with access to primary education and art therapeutic and rehabilitation programs globally.