"One such experience I will cherish for the rest of my life."
Participants repeatedly described this about their experience.
PARTNER WITH US
Bring living stories to your people
LSC creates spaces where people sit across from someone whose life looks nothing like theirs and listen. We work with workplaces, institutions, communities, and independent hosts to create sessions that replace assumptions with understanding.
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We’ve worked with
01 / WHY IT WORKS
From training to transformation
“Reading about someone's experience is not the same as hearing it from them.”
AWARENESS ALONE
Workshops and training sessions raise awareness, but changing how people feel about each other takes something different.
LIVED EXPERIENCE
When someone sits across from a refugee, a person living with disability, or someone in recovery and hears their story first-hand, that's when assumptions actually shift. Our sessions create that moment of connection, at scale.
02 / VOICES FROM THE ROOM
What listeners take with them
Reflections from participant feedback, alongside recent moments from our sessions.
"Every story we heard changed our perception of society."
Empathy toward others became the biggest takeaway.
03 / THE EXPERIENCE
How a session comes together
We handle everything from curating the Living Stories to facilitating the session. You bring the people; we create the space to listen.
STEP 1
We plan together
Tell us who you hope to bring together, what matters to them, and what you want the conversation to open up. We tailor the session and select Living Stories whose experiences speak to those themes.
STEP 2
We bring the stories
On the day, the Living Stories share their experiences in small-group conversations. Each one runs 20–30 minutes, and listeners rotate through several stories.
STEP 3
People leave changed
Listeners walk away with shifted perspectives, deeper empathy, and a shared experience that keeps the conversation going long after the session ends.
04 / IMPACT
What people carry forward
Evidence from listener feedback after Living Stories sessions.
93%
Rated 4 or 5
of participants rated the experience 4 or 5
Perspective shift
significant + somewhat
76%
- significant
- somewhat
WHAT PEOPLE OPENED UP ABOUT
Current issues, addiction, mental health, gender, LGBTQ+, culture, and everyday social prejudice.
05 / THE PEOPLE
The people behind the stories
Living Stories Collective is run by a small team that believes the shortest distance between people is a story.
FOUNDER
Ritika
Ritika Chawla is the Founder of Living Stories Collective. She is a seasoned L&D leader with 14+ years of experience in education and sustainability. She has worked with various organisations including the LEAD Group and India School Leadership Institute, working across schools in India. She also has a master's in Education from Azim Premji University.
While Ritika is increasingly focused on sustainability and environment related issues on one hand, LSC is her passion project that she started with her friends to build a more empathetic, kind and inclusive world, by shifting mindsets. She believes that only if we treat those around us better can we take care of larger global issues such as climate change and war.
CORE TEAM
Anu
Anu has been a Living Story since 2018, sharing her experiences with polyamory and queerness to replace assumption with empathy. Now a core member of LSC, she works with the team to calibrate and scale this model for broader impact. This approach is rooted in her branding background, where she specialises in finding the voice that resonates across diverse audiences.
An advocate of inclusivity, Anu continuously analyses the relationship between media representation and socio-cultural evolution of marginalised voices. She carries this commitment into her home by maintaining a safe and comfortable space for anyone in need of a conversation...or silence. This space is celebrated for its fully-stocked snack cupboard and a selection of beverages, ensuring there is something for everyone.
CORE TEAM
Taha
Taha has been part of Living Stories Collective since its inception, when he joined as a student in Hyderabad. Since then, he's remained part of the team that quietly makes the events happen. As Head of Operations at theprintspace, a bespoke fine art printing business with international production hubs, he brings the same instinct here: building the unglamorous systems that let more conversations happen, in more places.
Eight years in, Taha is convinced the real work of these conversations isn't the answers - it's the questions people allow themselves to ask. He's spent enough time in the chair across from a stranger as a living book, to know that being asked the right thing can shift something in you faster than being told anything ever could. He brings that into how he listens now: with the suspicion that the most important thing in any room is usually the question no one's risked yet.
CORE TEAM
Kamal
Kamal has been part of LSC since 2018, when he was still in college looking for a way to contribute and learn from others experiences. He's a Software Engineer with experience at Coinbase and Swiggy.
LSC is a passion project. One of the few spaces he's found where people genuinely learn from each other and aren't afraid of a difficult conversation. Over the years, this community has quietly shaped how he sees the world. He even turned vegan after listening to a living story here.
As part of the core team, he's contributed towards coordination, design, and tools that power our events, and helps on the event day as well.
06 / GET IN TOUCH
Let's plan your session
Tell us who you'd like to bring together and what you're looking for. We'll get back to you in a few days.