Jawad Sharif Leads Session on Storytelling for Climate Change
The Indus Hospital & Health Network (IHHN), through its youth platform Indus Yaqeen, recently hosted its annual youth conference, Meer-e-Karwan Tum Ho. It is a gathering designed to empower young people to become changemakers in their communities.
Among the key highlights of the conference was an interactive session on Storytelling for Climate Change, conducted by award-winning filmmaker Jawad Sharif. Drawing on his acclaimed works such as The Colour of Smog and Beyond the Heights, Jawad illustrated how cinema can turn awareness into empathy and inspire audiences to think critically about their relationship with the environment.
He spoke about storytelling as a form of collective memory : a means of preserving lives, landscapes, and voices that risk disappearing in the face of climate change. Through his lens as a documentary filmmaker, he emphasized that stories have the unique power to connect art, emotion, and truth. They allow people to see complex issues, like the climate crisis, through a deeply human perspective.
Jawad emphasized that storytelling is not only a tool for communication but an act of resilience. When young people document the world around them, they become part of the effort to preserve what matters most. Their creativity becomes a form of resistance against forgetting. Stories remain powerful because they bring together multiple art forms into a single movement of thought. They resonate deeply at both local and global levels, shaping how we remember, relate, and respond to the world around us.
For the young audience which was a mix of students, volunteers, and emerging leaders, the session proved to be reflective as well as empowering. Jawad encouraged them to use creative storytelling as a tool of advocacy and resilience. Whether through film, photography, or writing, he reminded them that their stories can inspire collective action and redefine how society perceives climate change.
Through conversations as the one led by Jawad Sharif, the next generation is being equipped to tell stories that will shape the future.
