![\"SIRAH_Kiran\"](\"\/\/casdev.unc.edu\/collegearchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2016\/04\/SIRAH_Kiran-200x300.jpg\")
For Kiran Singh Sirah \u201913, finding common ground through storytelling is the foundation for peace.<\/p>\nFor Kiran Singh Sirah \u201913, finding common ground through storytelling is the foundation for peace.<\/p>\n
Sirah, a former Duke-UNC Rotary Peace Center Fellow and folklore master\u2019s student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has made a career out of linking storytelling and folklore to issues of equality and social justice. Working as an artist, curator and teacher, Sirah has created and established innovative peace and conflict resolution programs and exhibits that tackle issues such as religion, race and identity.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you really look about the world today, identity is the thing that people are profoundly interested in, and it\u2019s also the thing that people will fight over,\u201d Sirah said. \u201cSo the connection between folklore and social justice is about helping people\u2026tell their stories in their own unique ways \u2014 in their own ways that are important to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sirah\u2019s own identity has been shaped by his family\u2019s journey from India to East Africa to England, where his parents arrived as refugees in 1972 and where Sirah was born. Over the years, his work has taken him to places like New Delhi, Uganda and Madrid.<\/p>\n
Over the course of his career, Sirah has worked with various organizations and museums, curating exhibitions and creating educational programs. He earned a bachelor\u2019s degree in art and design from Wolverhampton University in 1998 and a master\u2019s degree in museum, gallery and heritage studies from Newcastle University in 2003. In December 2002, he was chosen as the first learning and access curator at the St. Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art in Glasgow, Scotland, one of the only museums of its kind in the world.<\/p>\n
During his time with the museum, Sirah established a citizenship and anti-sectarianism heritage project and managed Glasgow\u2019s contribution to the UK\u2019s national initiative in commemoration of the bi\u2013centenary of the abolition of the British Slave Trade Act.<\/p>\n
\u201cI embarked on a program that explored the issue of sectarian and ethnic divisions by drawing from museum collections but also encouraging the collecting of new material for the museum displays,\u201d Sirah said. \u201cI also [worked] with gang members, police officials and community workers in ways that encouraged a wider partnership approach for enabling young people to tell their stories.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sirah arrived in Chapel Hill in 2011 after being accepted into the department of American studies master\u2019s of folklore program<\/a> and being offered the prestigious Rotary Peace Fellowship.<\/p>\n