Cultural Preservation

• Falmouth Heritage Renewal, Falmouth, Jamaica A leading outpost for the British Empire in the 19th century, Falmouth, Jamaica, was a busy port town full of elegant customhouses, merchant stores, and residences. With some of the richest examples of Georgian architecture in the Caribbean, Falmouth remains a city of immense cultural importance. Having been passed over by the island's thriving tourism industry, however, the town is facing alarmingly high unemployment rates, and its buildings are in a state of severe disrepair. Falmouth Heritage Renewal, a four-year-old grassroots campaign started by Virginia-based Christopher Ohrstrom, is tackling the city's problems by training locals in restoration and putting them to work to save the historic architecture. The project hopes to eventually draw thousands of tourists to the historic district, thereby revitalizing the area's economy. Falmouth Heritage has already trained 34 young Jamaicans in carpentry and in the manufacture and use of mortar for preservation work. The group has restored nearly two dozen edifices, ranging from modest single-room houses to colonnaded commercial buildings—structures that provide vivid insight into the lives of both the slave owners and the emancipated slaves who constructed the city in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Though the program is narrow in scope, its singular commitment to the city of Falmouth is what makes it so powerful: "It's a bottom-up, community-based project," juror Andrew Fairley says. www.falmouthjamaica.org