A new educational initiative aimed at giving Rastafari communities a greater role in shaping Jamaica’s cultural tourism product while exposing inner-city youth to opportunities in the “blue economy” is set to be piloted this summer.

Named the Trench Town Roots & Rivers EDventure: English for Eco Tourism & Global Hospitality, the initiative forms part of a wider move to strengthen partnerships between Jamaica’s tourism sector, local communities, environmental groups and Rastafarian cultural leaders.

Director of Global Outreach at Culture Yard Museum in Trench Town, Karen Francis said the initiative will combine cultural education, eco-tourism training, marine biology exposure, and media storytelling to create new pathways into the tourism industry.

“It is an educational tourism product that is designed to move Jamaicans or people outside of just the service industry into what is called the blue economy. There are many young people from inner cities, and even all of Jamaica, who really do not know how to enter into this marketplace — scuba diving, snorkelling, coral reefs, anything related to marine life,” Francis told the Jamaica Observer recently.

She said the programme is being developed in collaboration with The University of the West Indies Discovery Marine Centre in Discovery Bay and the Port Royal Marine Laboratory.

According to Francis, the initiative will also draw on oral and historical accounts from members of the Rastafari community to create a formal curriculum that can eventually be expanded into a wider educational tourism product.

“So I will extract and develop a curriculum around what I get from the Rastafari community so that we can start to have a foundation from which to teach and educate the public about what Rastafari is about, instead of whatever the opinions that people form based on what they see and hear, and the individual opinions of different Rastafari,” she said.

Francis explained that the cultural component of the curriculum is intended to preserve and document Rastafari history from the perspective of Rastafarians themselves.

“The stories have to be told from our perspectives, and we have to document them because many of the ones who have the stories are getting old right now,” she said.

She argued that many sacred Rastafari spaces are at risk of being displaced or overshadowed by commercial developments, including hotels, and said the initiative would create a platform for the community to shape its own narrative and preserve its heritage.

As part of that effort, Francis said community “reasoning” sessions will be held at Culture Yard, while members of the diaspora will also be invited to contribute virtually.

The project will also include a media component through a partnership with Florida-based I&I Radio, where discussions surrounding Rastafari history, identity, and religion will be aired.

Francis said the broader aim is to expose young Jamaicans to alternative tourism opportunities, including eco-tourism, sports tourism, and marine-related careers.

The pilot programme is expected to begin this summer with 10 girls from Trench Town and surrounding communities.

She added that while not all prospects would be possible in its initial staging, the initiative could eventually expand internationally through tourism and cultural exchange programmes designed to attract overseas students and members of the Diaspora to Jamaica.