Our Jamaican story will be told!

There's a battle going on for our National Museum and too many Jamaicans don't even realise there IS a National Museum, because it's located in downtown Kingston where parking is impossible and on weekends the place is closed.

In May of this year, the board of the museums (yes, there is more than one museum) launched a campaign to bring to public awareness that there are over 17,000 artefacts lying in the basement of the Institute of Jamaica (IOJ) and no permanent exhibition space for these fascinating objects which not only tell the history of Jamaica, but also open windows onto other world cultures.

Friends of the Museums was launched by bringing artefacts uptown, where Kenny Benjamin graciously hosted an event at his Guardsman headquarters, and a number of potential volunteers and donors were invited to see what the public is missing by not having access to a proper, permanent museum display. All three newspapers published exciting accounts.

Chester Francis-Jackson wrote a genuinely thought-provoking piece, on the absurdity of a country with such a rich history not having a permanent display area for its National Museum, giving only lip service to heritage tourism while neglecting the tourism potential of the museum's treasure trove. Mark Thompson, in Pure Class, did a detailed centrespread with many photographs while a pictorial of the event made it onto the Observer's Page Two.

Do you know what the result of this public appeal was? Only one person stepped up to the plate and did something tangible to help.

Businessman Gordon Tewani called to say that he wanted to make a donation to the museum building fund. The near-death of his son's wife in childbirth shortly afterwards, and the paperwork involved in setting up the Our Jamaican Story Foundation, prevented the handover ceremony until September 16, but now the first donation has been made to create a permanent exhibition.

Tewani's own story is a fascinating one which needs to be told one day, a refugee whose family lost everything when the partition of India took place to create India and Pakistan, he remembers sleeping on a railway platform as his family fled the violence. He later came to Jamaica virtually penniless, and worked long hours for others until he saved enough to found his own business with his Jamaican wife, Diana. Now they want to contribute to building a place for the Museums Division of the IOJ to show the world what we have.

But it's going to take a lot more people getting involved to make it happen. Chairman Rebecca Tortello has been the driving force in galvanising the Museums board into action. Executive director of the IOJ, Vivian Crawford, calls it the most active board he works with. Amongst its members is Jeffrey Hall, CEO of Jamaica Producers Group, who together with Liseh Harrison, has formed the Our Jamaican Story Foundation so that donations to the museums can be used specifically for the creation of a permanent exhibition space.

Fellow board member Carol Rose Brown helped obtain sponsorship for the current exhibition about the West Indian impact on World War II and the UK, now extended into November. She works in the office of the minister of tourism, and has been actively compiling lists of local and diaspora people willing to become Friends of the Museum, because 90 per cent of the funding from government goes directly to pay staff salaries. Security and electricity more than eat up the rest and there is no money left for exhibitions.

There is still no sponsorship for the African oral heritage exhibition, which should have opened this November and would have honoured Miss Lou while also introducing students to the science of spiders! And there will be no exhibition next February if money isn't found by November to mount the exhibition next year. Exhibition space in the Tower Street Gallery is shared with the Junior Centre and the Museum of Natural History, and must rotate.

hope for greater awareness

Dr Sonjah Stanley Niaah, another board member, has just been seconded from the Institute of Cultural Studies at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus to work in culture and entertainment with Principal Director Sydney Bartley in the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture, so there is hope for greater awareness of the Museum's potential.

Diana Thorburn, board member and a director of the Development Bank of Jamaica is also keenly aware not only of the need to move forward on sharing Jamaican exhibitions with other museums worldwide, while bringing their offerings to our public, but to also develop the satellite museums, such as the People's Museum in Spanish Town, the recently renovated Hanover Museum in Lucea, and the St James Museum which is much in need of work.

To help the parking situation, five parking spaces have been rented in the new parking lot on the left side of East Street, half a block above Tower Street, where the guard will give a chit to be stamped if going to the Museum. A gift shop and ticket booth are to be ready by November at the 10-16 East Street museum entrance, below the National Library, to gain entry to exhibitions rather than going via the Tower Street entrance to the accounts office.

Plans are afoot to lease a café inside and have one weekend opening every month. The bad news is that with environmental changes, we're advised the National Library, National Gallery and Museums are at risk of flooding in a hurricane or tsunami. The sad news is that we're losing Director StaciMarie Dehaney on October 14. The good news is that she has joined the Jamaica Defence Force and will be director/curator for the Military Museum at Up Park Camp.

Our chairman, an adviser to the minister of education, has a passion for creating exciting educational play centres for children within the exhibition spaces - 90 per cent of our visitors now are students. As a fellow Museums' board member, my passion is to one day have sophisticated display cases and mountings within a stunning building such as the Shanghai Museum or the Musée du Quai Branly, creating a weekend adventure for families and tourists alike. Both visions are valid, and we hope that just as people like Ambassador Burchell Whiteman and Gordon Tewani are committing themselves to our endeavour, you will too. For tours or information call922-0620-6 or email pr@instituteofjamaica.