Generation NGO

At age 15, Valerie Stam left the comfort of her parents' home in Hamilton and flew to Douala, Cameroon.  There she discovered families living in houses pieced together with scraps of wood and medal, children wandering the streets with no shoes, and sometimes no homes. That month in Cameroon changed the way she viewed herself and the world around her. And her experience was similar to that of many other young Canadians who leave home to do work in refugee camps, or disaster zones.

Those stories have been compiled in a book called Generation NGO. Valerie Stam and her friend Alisha Nicole Apale are the co-editors and two of the contributors. They joined guest host Stu in studio just ahead of the book launch on Thursday.