Help with stories for refugee teens

[daktaris]

I am part of a team of medics and support staff and volunteers working in North America and the EU in a counseling rôle in assisting teenage members of refugee and asylum-seeking families with lifestyle issues. My team is particularly focussed on issues surrounding non-traditional sexual orientation, but within the context of everything else of course: new country, language, political and legal system, children's rights, gender equality, social system and etiquette, religious and moral norms, ethics and cultural ethos; in short, the works!

So, these 11-17 year-olds are dealing with the nightmare of their raging pubescent hormones whilst all the rest of their known world has also undergone a tectonic shift.

As there are currently only eight of us working as team leaders in this specialty - three in the US, and one each in Canada, Germany, Sweden, Spain and the UK - we are seeing only a tiny fraction of those referred to us and those only twice monthly.

As a consequence, my colleagues and I have found good, age-appropriate stories with a strong, supportive message to be one excellent resource we can call upon between our sessions with those we call our protégés.

I need your help finding these.

We begun a very amateurish blog a few weeks ago seeking help from writers and others because we simply do not have time to trawl the web to find the right stuff. I am probably breaking the code of etiquette of webism or whatever by doing this, but I'm desperate. If you have time, and have a care for LGBT Asylum-seeking teens, please read some of the posts on www.daktaris.WordPress.com and either reply to me there, or comment here or email me directly. We desperately need your input. We also need simple moral support, just to feel somebody among the community cares about these kids. At present we are beginning to think we are speaking into an uncaring black hole.

Blessings. Doc.

[Irritable1]

I'd suggest contacting the Fairfax County libraries, if you're in Northern Virginia. They've got a big immigrant population to serve and may have ideas. 

 

The vast majority of what you'll find directed to young adults on the web for free, or self-published, is porn, or, at best, pulpy romance geared to readers from a Western mindset. You really need a professional librarian or publisher.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Irritable1

[Graeme]

For adventure/escapism, have a look at C James's stories Let The Music Play, its sequel Changing Lanes, and Circumnavigation. All of these are adventure novels (and Circumnavigation will keep a reader occupied for a very long time -- it's 158 action packed chapters in length). For The Love is another adventure story, but with a slightly higher sexual content. It's still a good adventure story, though, and would be suitable for older teens.

 

Another would be dkstories's The Rider's Pride, which is an excellent fantasy adventure fan fiction set in Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern.

 

For a story about someone dealing with change and being gay at the same time, you can't go past Don Luka's Desert Dropping

 

I think that's enough for starters

[Gene Splicer PHD]

Check out the mustard jar - www.themustardjar.com - Ronyx is the author and his stories would probably suit.

 

Also www.codeysworld.com but you probably know about that site

[Kitt]

I don't have much to add from a story standpoint - but hurrah for the work you are doing. These teens probably did not want to leave their homes when their parents did, have had their worlds turned upside down, and some are facing the confusion of the whole gay/bi/straight thing besides. It's good someone is attempting to help.

[JamesSavik]

Gay Writers site has a few stories for us, including one referred to me by a volunteer in Canada. I forget the title offhand, but it featured teenage boys left in charge of an atmospheric monitoring station after a biological war. It pushed all the boy-hormone buttons: heroes, fighting, adolescents, fear. I tried to see if there would be a sequel, but the writer, who requested feed back, provided an email address which bounced back.

 

Uhhhh... holy crap- I think he's talking about Twilight/In the Shadow of the Dragon!

[Graeme]

Uhhhh... holy crap- I think he's talking about Twilight/In the Shadow of the Dragon!

He could be, in which case I think you need to check what email address you've got listed against that story

[JamesSavik]

I recently changed all of my feedback addresses to the same one.