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Giving voice to displaced children and young people.

About the Project

What is Stone Soup:

Welcome to the Stone Soup Refugee Project.

Stone Soup is a literary magazine and website founded in 1973. Its headquarters is in Santa Cruz, California, USA. The literary work we publish is 100% written and illustrated by young people up to the age of fourteen. We have extended the age range to twenty for Refugee children and youth.

Stone Soup is published by the Children’s Art Foundation, an educational charity registered in the USA.

The Stone Soup Refugee Project:

The Stone Soup Refugee Project is for creative young people forced from their homes by traumatic circumstances. The work that appears here has been submitted by young people, up to twenty years of age, living as refugees in many parts of the world. The Stone Soup Refugee Project was inspired by Sabrina Guo, a longtime student writer for Stone Soup. It was her initiative making contact with a filmmaker working in the Za’atari Camp in Jordan that set us on this journey.

To Refugee Youth:

This project is, first, and foremost, for you, young people up to age twenty. It is the place where you can publish your creative work in a forum accessible to your friends and family, and for people living around the world.

This web portal is a place where you can use your creative talents to express what you want to express, whether that is to speak directly about your experiences, or to tell a story, share a photograph, or work of art. If you are a dancer, you might share a video of you dancing. If you cook and have ideas for meals, even if you might not now, today, have the resources to make the dishes of your dreams, you can write them down, and share them here. With Stone Soup you are in a world with no borders, no walls, no fences.

Submitting Material:

If you are a young person from a refugee background we want to hear your stories, and see your artwork. Use this inquiry form [link to submittable form] to initiate sending us your work. If you are a teacher working with refugee children, or an administrator in a refugee facility, whether under the UNHCR or other entity, we welcome hearing from you, as well. Please use the same form to get in touch with Laura Moran, our program director.

Everything you send us will be published in this Refugee section of the website. Additionally, everything submitted is considered for publication in our literary magazine, Stone Soup, and you are also welcome to become a Stone Soup blogger.

Stone Soup has, until now, been for English speakers. Through the magic of Google Translate, you may send us work in any language that Google translates.

A note on age limit and biographical information:

We have extended the usual age limit for Stone Soup submissions from 13 to 20 for the Refugee Project, to accommodate the unique challenges faced by refugee youth. For example, many young refugees have faced significant interruptions in their schooling due to war, persecution, or climate change, which means that their grade level will not correspond to the same age of a young person who has not experienced such interruptions. By extending the opportunity to share creative work with the youth of a broader age range, we aim to be inclusive of all young people living as refugees.

It is not always possible to share the biographical information of refugee youth that we typically include with Stone Soup submissions, as per the Protection guidelines of the organizations that protect them.

Viewing the Website:

It is our hope that this portal for refugee youth will attract a large readership. We are hopeful that members of the press will visit us often, and will find a way to use the material to bring light into the lives of the writers and artists whose work you find here. Stone Soup cannot heal physical wounds. But we can contribute to healing mental wounds.

The Washington Post has this fabulous byline– “Democracy dies in darkness”. We ask that visitors think of each of the children whose works you find here as an individual. “Refugee” is not their identity. They are boys and girls. Young men and young women. They are each going to become adults, raise families, and become grandparents. No matter what we do. Any light we can bring into their lives now, before they grow up, anything we can do to empower each of these young people to feel part of the world at large, the “normal” world, is a gift of life that cannot be exaggerated.

You will find the work here divided up in different ways. We publish everything that is sent to us within the refugee project. To make it easier for people using the site to find work that we find noteworthy for one reason or another we have a “Curated” category. This includes work that we have selected for Stone Soup Magazine, and work that we are not able to publish in the magazine but that we want to be sure you see.

We are opening this web portal with writing and art, but are looking forward to publishing music, film, and theater: whatever creative outlet has meaning for you can be shared with the world here. Welcome to Stone Soup.