Jacky Touba’s new history of ‘World’ kids Museum in Glens Falls

By Cathy DeDe, Chronicle Managing Editor

Ten years in the writing, Dr. Jacquiline Touba’s latest book is a history of the World Awareness Children’s Museum, which the world-traveling sociologist founded in her adopted hometown, Glens Falls, in 1985.

“The book is about how the museum got started, in all the phases that went through right from the beginning, from an idea to a reality,” Dr. Touba said.

“It was really a community effort.”

She whittled the original 100 pages of text to 28, and added pictures from the museum’s long history.

Born in Troy, “Jacky” Touba graduated from Lansingburgh High School, earned her Bachelor’s degree in Sociology at Syracuse University, got her Master’s at Leiden University in the Netherlands, with a PhD also in City Planning.

Taught in Tehran; hostage crisis

Married to Riza Touba of Iran, Dr. Touba taught Sociology at Tehran University from 1968 to 1980.

“We were there all during the Revolution, before, during and after the Revolution, and during the Hostage Crisis.

“I was in class with my students (in Tehran) when they took the American Embassy,” Dr. Touba recounts. “They came and told me what had happened, and they told me, they, the people, did not have anything against the American people. It was the American government,” they were against, she says.

“We saw the writing on the wall over there, and decided to come back.

“We came to Glens Falls,” which they knew because her parents had retired here, Dr. Touba recalls.

“When I came back here, people didn’t really know anything about the Middle East. There was so little knowledge about what was happening, and right at that point, I think Iran and Iraq were at war.

“I was teaching at Skidmore, and I decided we needed to start earlier. We needed to introduce the world, bring it into children’s minds early on, before the mass media got to them. I’m not against the media, but it does color the way things are presented very often.”

First, an International Fest in GF

“I wanted to do something so that people would have a brush with people from other cultures. That’s how we started the International Festival and the International Arts and Culture Association.

“We got in touch with groups, families that were first or second generation — from here, there and everywhere. We had the NAACP, we had Rotary, international organizations, anywhere that we could find people from different cultures who wanted to participate” — for dancing, singing, foods, crafts, “and all that.”

“In 1988, after we had started the festival, I got the idea about this International Youth Art Exchange Program,” reaching out to contacts she and others had at schools in other countries, and to schools across America, to share their students’ art. She said she was inspired by an exhibit of Russian children’s art at the Hyde.

“First we had six countries, then 14, then we had 20 countries. It just started growing.

“That’s when people really stood up and took notice. Donna Hassler, then curator at the Hyde, was on our board. She said we need to protect this art, and the New York State Council on the Arts, they also were recommending to become a museum. And so we became a museum in 1995,” changing the name to World Awareness Children’s Museum.

They worked out of a fifth floor office in the Colvin Building in downtown, then moved to the third floor of Ordway Hall, then known as the Godnick’s Building, where SPoT Coffee is now.

It was a space where they could do exhibitions, hold programs, show the children’s art regularly. “We were there 10 years,” until Godnick’s sold.

Again homeless, working out of an office in the Russell & Wait Building downtown, the Museum launched a capital campaign in 2005 that put them into their permanent home, 89 Warren Street, with permanent and changing exhibit spaces, storage, offices and meeting room.

Dates, history and pictures are laid out in Dr. Touba’s book.

“It’s always been to provide this opportunity to learn about diversity and be aware of world cultures, leading to a decrease in prejudice and discrimination,” Dr. Touba says. “Those were always the way. That was always our mission.

“The need now is more than ever. It doesn’t seem to get any better. It gets worse. We’re just hoping that we make a small impact, and at least the children that go through the museum, if nothing else, they come out as a better citizen.”

Dr. Touba retired from the museum in 2013. Bethanie Lawrence is now director.

Dr. Touba’s message: “You can start with an idea and make it come to fruition, but it doesn’t happen overnight.

“This was 40 years in the making, 1985 to 2025. It takes perseverance and optimism. I just never thought it wouldn’t happen. And everybody who came on board, we had so many wonderful people, intelligent and strong members of the community who thought this was a good idea. It was the mission that sold it.”

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