National Advisory Board

Kayhan Irani is an Emmy-award winning writer, a cultural activist, and a Theater of the Oppressed trainer. She creates and leads participatory theater and story-based projects to build community, grow grassroots leadership, and connect to our deepest potential for change. She works internationally and in the U.S. with NGOs, government agencies, and community organizations to expand what’s possible when we deepen our relationships to community through storytelling.

She was one of ten artists named by President Obama’s White House in 2016 as a Champion of Change for her storytelling work with immigrant communities. She won a 2010 New York Emmy award for best writing for “We Are New York” a 9-episode broadcast TV drama (WNYCTV) used as an English language and civic engagement tool for immigrant New Yorkers. She designed a linked, community-based conversation initiative that brought together thousands of immigrants to practice English in volunteer-led conversation groups which continues to this day. 

Kayhan has trained hundreds of groups in Theater of the Oppressed and participatory storytelling tools over the years, both nationally and overseas, in Afghanistan, India, and Iraq. She actively works with and supports refugees who are imagining and building forms and networks of  cultural continuity projects in diaspora.

Her published work includes a co-edited volume of essays, Telling Stories to Change the World: Global Voices on the Power of Narrative to Build Community and Make Social Justice Claims (Routledge, 2008), and chapters in such collections as: Culturally Relevant Arts Education for Social Justice: A Way Out of No Way (Routledge, 2015); Storytelling for Social Justice: Connecting Narrative and the Arts in AntiRacist Teaching, 2nd Ed. (Routledge, 2019), and A Grassroots Leadership and Arts for Social Change Primer (ILA, 2021).

She is currently working on There is a Portal, an immersive digital experience, pedagogy, and leadership development model that offers us a way to create networks of belonging even when we feel most broken. She is a mother to one son.