Film showcases mountain communities’ resilience to climate disasters

Highlighting how the mountain communities in northern Pakistan are being seriously affected by environmental crises, speakers at a recent event for World Environment Day hosted by Aga Khan University (AKU) at Habitt City, Pakistan, underscored the need for integrating awareness about changing weather patterns into educational framework and making mental health part of disaster response. It started off with the screening of a documentary — The Sky is Far, The Earth is Tough — that explores how natural disasters and climate change are affecting the physical health and mental well-being of mountain communities in northern areas. Part of the Voices from the Roof of the World (VRW) documentary series, the film is directed by Haya Fatima Iqbal. It offered an unvarnished look at the resilience and vulnerabilities of these northern communities and brought together filmmakers, climate advocates, students and change makers from different spaces to address the urgent environmental crises facing vulnerable populations.