Manila – The Institute for Labor Studies’ Gender and Development (GAD) Committee organized a “Gender and Disasters” film showing and talkback session held via Zoom last August 12.

The monthly session serves as a venue for post-screening sharing and reflection among ILS employees in relation to mental health and resilience during a traumatic event, or a pandemic.

This month’s featured film is “The Impossible,” a 2012 English-language disaster drama film directed by J. A. Bayona, based on the experience of María Belón and her family during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

During the talkback session, participants shared their thoughts on the film on mindfulness and coping strategies that they could practice in the face of imminent anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder attack, and how everyone could cope with and overcome them.

The ILS-GAD committee is constituted in compliance with the Philippine Commission on Women Memorandum Circular 2011-01 institutionalizing the Gender and Development (GAD) Focal Point System to accelerate gender mainstreaming in government agencies toward the promotion of women’s rights and the elimination of discrimination in the workplace based on gender.