Hannah Sung never thought being the Scarborough, Ont. bookworm would eventually put her in the spotlight. But after landing a dream gig as MuchMusic’s pop culture reporter for four years and interviewing some of the most influential pop culture icons—from Guns N’ Roses to Johnny Depp—the only thing she could do was…leave?

“It's always a tough decision to leave a place where you feel safe,” explained Sung in a recent interview with One80. “I love everyone I worked with at Much.”

But when the opportunity came last September to work with the youth initiative of CARE Canada, which is part of an international network bringing emergency relief to countries overseas, Sung didn’t think twice about boarding a plane with YouthCARE to Indonesia and East Timor to film a documentary on the non-governmental organization’s (NGO) efforts in those South Asian countries. In Banda Aceh, Sung felt extremely privileged to have been there, and opened up her world to understanding what it’s like to live in a Muslim society and to witness the extreme generousity of Indonesian people who’ve just lost everything from the tsunami.

Yogyakarta felt more like Toronto with its multi-faith communities, but the 29-year-old was blown away by the amount of homelessness on the street. She went into the temporary shelters and homes of people who have set up shacks on the sites of their former homes. She filmed all these neighbourhoods where it was literally just the foundations of the homes left and big piles of brick, because people piled the remains of their homes neatly. About 350,000 homes were destroyed, and 1.2 million people were left homeless.

“Working with YouthCARE drove home the injustices of poverty in a very real way,” said Sung. “I met people who live with so much stress and uncertainty—not to mention lack of basic human rights such as access to education and health care—for no reason other than that they were born into a politically unstable environment or that their homes were hit by a natural disaster.”

Upon her return to Canada, Sung also started touring high schools and found many students curious and engaged. “I also found that so many of them are already well-versed in issues surrounding international aid,” she said. “Most of them fundraise for great NGOs, and several schools even had international development as part of their school's mandate, which really impressed me.”

Sung also organized a benefit concert in Toronto to raise money for the CARE operation in East Timor that garnered $2,365 for Dili, East Timor. As for her time spent at Much as a reporter, she said being a writer is what she always wanted to be. “I didn't think that I'd ever have a job that public,” she said. “Yes, it's intimidating to do the whole sink or swim thing at Much, but it teaches you to have thicker skin and to not be intimidated easily. I just kind of learned to deal with panic.”

Sung’s favourite experiences at Much include having conversations with artists she admires such as Le Tigre, M.I.A., Margaret Cho, and Feist. “The only time celebrity gets a rise out of me is when I meet someone I loved as a kid,” she said. “When I think back to my 10-year-old self, I get pretty dazzled that Mick Jagger said my name, that I had a conversation with Guns N’ Roses (minus Axl - too bad!), and that I can say that Johnny Depp seems like a pretty cool guy.”

Sung’s advice to youth wishing to get into broadcasting or social justice sectors is to be active about understanding what the job entails, to conduct research on the Internet, volunteer, and above all, work hard. “Young people didn't always have a voice in mainstream media, but the Internet's changing that,” she noted. “Adults have always assumed that kids are only interested in smaller-minded interests than older people, when in fact, I think it's the opposite. Young people have passion, energy, and compassion, and sometimes that gets overlooked.”

Visit the YouthCARE Web site at www.care.ca/youthcare

Jenny Yuen is One80's Special Edition Reporter for the April edition on employment. She is a Toronto-based freelance news writer for NOW Magazine, Ontario Restaurant News, and BlogTO.