Food and film help Faroe Islands to weather the storm as economy flourishes
Hjordis Susanna i Davastovu prepared to leave London in early 2019 by buying a waterproof and taking vitamin D supplements. After 11 years in the UK, she and her partner were returning home to the Faroe Islands, a tiny North Atlantic archipelago with dark winters and 210 days of rain a year.
“We had been mulling over whether to move back for some time. Then I was headhunted for a job that was too good to turn down,” said i Davastovu, a human resources manager. “The Faroe Islands have changed so much. Ten years ago there were barely any jobs in my field.”
The decision to return to the Faroes is an increasingly common reversal of a historic trend. Like other rural societies, the islands have struggled with the departure of young people, and well-educated women in particular. But over the past nine years something remarkable has happened: the population has kept growing at record pace.
“Ever since the second world war, we have…
