The Friends' Guide emerged when our newcomer students attending our tutoring sessions expressed a need to understand not just their school material, but their school itself. It became solidified when students said they did not feel like they belonged in their school, and felt alone in their struggles, unsure of what solutions might help or were available to them.
This book is a collection of the best advice, experience, and resources our nonprofit multilingual tutoring and enrichment group, led by teens, has provided to our newcomer students over the past three years.
The Friends' Guide is the ultimate reference book for refugee and newcomer middle and high school students starting a new school in the U.S, learning English as a second language, and seeking inclusion in their new school communities. Using an evidenced-based approach of messages from older students and essential tips derived from our student run nonprofit providing over 12,000 hours of multilingual tutoring and enrichment services to newcomer students, this book captures the strengths of immigrant teens, shines a light into their lives, and through messages from newcomer students themselves, lifts their voices, providing essential support for their success at their new schools. This book contains the most essential information teens need for success at school from teens themselves. Written in 8 languages-English, Dari, Farsi, Pashto, Spanish, Russian, Ukrainian, and Arabic-with over 10,000 copies sold in 2023 alone.
This book is dedicated to the amazing newcomer and refugee students who have shared their stories and lives with us over the years. To these awe-inspiring students, this book is our way of saying you have more friends than you know and inspired more people than is possible to count. Welcome to your new school, we are so excited to see your success!
