Kiran Singh Sirah

Kiran Singh Sirah is an internationally recognized storytelling for peace, human rights, and justice and narrative change industry specialist as well as Past President of the International Storytelling Center, producer of the world-renowned National Storytelling Festival. For more than two decades Singh Sirah helped establish a number of award-winning arts, cultural, and human rights programs in numerous countries. These included community dialogue programs in response to the 9/11 attacks and a number of peacebuilding and conflict resolution initiatives exploring issues of religious, ethnic, and sectarian conflicts in Scotland, Northern Ireland, Colombia, The Middle East and The United States. For ten years he led the International Storytelling Center’s national and global partnerships and helped the institution grow in ways previously unimaginable.

Singh Sirah is a sought-after storytelling thought leader and has spoken at the Smithsonian Institution, the United Nations, the Library of Congress, League of American Orchestra, US State Department, NASA, The Pentagon, The Kennedy Center, the National Parks Service, European Commission and numerous World Peace assemblies.

Singh Sirah is a prolific storytelling champion, speaker and also advises on interdisciplinary approaches to advancing storytelling as a tool for peace and social change with the Pentagon, UNESCO, American Public Health Association, the White House, Google Arts & Culture, Dollywood (by invitation of Her Majesty Dolly Parton.) He has collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma and led story circles at the US senate introducing a bipartisan peace initiative, the Ellie Wiesel Genocide and Mass Atrocities Prevention Act, which was eventually signed into US law. In addition Singh Sirah developed a proclamation of storytelling for healing with the City of Charleston following the 2015 massacre at "Mother" Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, mentors national Poetry Out Loud champions and youth peace activists.

In 2017, Singh Sirah was awarded the "Champion of Peace" recognition at the Rotary International ceremony at the United Nations in Geneva and was recently nominated for his storytelling and social justice work to receive a prestigious national educational Martin Luther King Jr. human rights award.

Every keynote lecture, workshop, and program always has two ideas at the fore: global peace and the stories that will get us there. As Kiran says, "Once you understand your own story matters", it’s not a large leap to understand other people’s do, too.