Voluntourism attracts stars to Kenyan slum

NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) -- Picture in your mind's eye a trip to Africa.

I am willing to bet you see Robert Redford or Meryl Streep gallivanting around the Masai Mara. Or perhaps you imagine scuba and a daiquiri in Zanzibar?

You probably didn't picture a day trip through the notorious Kibera slum in Nairobi.

But Kibera is now a stopover for a new type of tourist: They're calling it Voluntourism.

I followed a group of celebrities around Kibera and to the other poorer reaches of Nairobi. They were in Kenya to film a documentary for Feed the Children, an organization that supports more than 100,000 children in the capital's slums.

TV star Dean Cain's "Lois and Clark" series might have stopped airing in the U.S. more than 10 years ago, but it's now airing in Kenya. And every kid he met called him 'Superman.' Watch the stars tour the slum »

"When you come here and you sit down and look a girl and a boy in the eye and you have a conversation with them it becomes a lot more personal," he tells me.

Like most people, celebrity or otherwise, a trip to these areas is an eye opener. We travel to the slums frequently to report (though not with an 11 car entourage), so it's easy to forget what an impact the experience can have the first time.

Actress and model Shannon Elizabeth, star of the first "American Pie" film, fits into that mold. Sitting with her in an abandoned children's center, she said that it puts things into perspective.

"It really teaches you that things that we think really matter at home don't. Like people get mad because there is a long Starbucks line...it really don't doesn't matter."

It was a refrain I heard time and time again. Though they were here to help raise money, the trip clearly has a big impact.

"People send money a lot and they go and wear their tuxedos and they sign their checks and feel that's it, that will cover it," says actor Louis Gossett Junior, whose credits include the hit film "An Officer and a Gentleman," but he feels people now want to get their hands dirty. Unlike some of the other celebrities, he is not new to Africa. He first came here in 1979.

But the true veteran and legend of this group is James Bond himself. Roger Moore has been heavily involved in promoting children's rights for well over a decade. In some ways his humanitarian work has eclipsed his acting career.

It meant a lot to him personally.

"It's the first time in my life I have done something worthwhile instead of saying my name is Bond or my name is Simon Templar (a British TV character he played)," he says. "We feel a little warmer at night. Even though there is snow on the ground outside."