The seventh episode of this season of NetVUE’s podcast Callings features Kiran Singh Sirah, an award-winning storytelling artist and folklorist. He is the creative lead for Storytelling: A Gift of Hope, a project that harnesses the art of storytelling to create intimate healing and justice spaces to build dialogue, agency, and change for communities on their own terms. As well, he is the past president of the International Storytelling Center in Jonesborough, Tennessee.
For more than two decades and in numerous countries, Kiran has created award-winning arts, cultural, and human rights initiatives, which have been recognized by UNESCO, the White House, the United Nations, and the European Commission. He has spoken at the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, the American Public Health Association, the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Pentagon, the United States State Department, and numerous world peace, arts, and culture assemblies. In 2017, he was one seven people worldwide selected to receive the “Champion of Peace” award at Rotary International Day at the United Nations in Geneva and was recently nominated for his work to receive a National Education Association Martin Luther King Jr. Human Rights and Civil Rights award. In October of 2024, he was also a keynote speaker at a NetVUE regional gathering at King University on vocation and storytelling.
In this episode, he explores the overlap between vocation and story and discusses with hosts Erin VanLaningham and John Barton how storytelling deepens human connection as part of our callings. “When you allow people to come alive,” Kiran notes, “to talk about what gives them agency—what gives them joy—then they become the storyteller.” In this way, he reminds us of the beauty of sharing our individual and communal stories, along with the power of an inspiring and complex narrative. Stories help foster curiosity about our “whole selves” so that we can build relationships that bridge divides and reveal an expansive, shared purpose in a “space of welcome.”
Click hereto listen to the episode featuring Kiran Singh Sirah titled “Storytelling as Vocation.”
Geoffrey W. Bateman is the editor of Vocation Matters.