No character in soaps is more wonderfully self-obsessed than All My Children’s Erica Kane. But the rich, pampered mantrap—played by suds superstar Susan Lucci—is about to grow a social conscience. On August 20, Erica will go on location to Kenya with her talk show New Beginnings to bring attention to the starving children of that nation. She will return a changed woman.

“Erica has always been daytime’s Scarlett O’Hara—it’s why we adore her—and it was fun watching her thrive during the Me Generation,” notes AMC head writer Chuck Pratt. “But now it’s time to get her into the real world.”

The plot twist was triggered by Lucci’s own recent sojourn to Kenya. She and General Hospital stars Tony Geary and Kelly Monaco went to the region on behalf of the philanthropic organization Feed the Children and footage from their trip will air in a “Daytime Gives Back” segment on the Daytime Emmys (August 30 on the CW). AMC took advantage of the opportunity and arranged for sequences to be shot in Kenya featuring Lucci in character.

But don’t assume this new enlightened Erica will go over well with her audience. When the first of two planned specials on the crisis in Kenya airs on New Beginnings, viewer turnout is low. The producers quickly drop the second episode and switch to a show about beauty makeovers, during which an angry Erica goes rogue on live television—a la Howard Beale in “Network”—and gets back on topic. Come September, she’ll raise funds for the cause with a massive dance marathon, like the movie “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” Says Pratt: “It’s the most complicated, ambitious thing we’ve ever done.”

We spoke with the Emmy-winning Lucci about her life-altering journey.

You spent time in the Nairobi area known as Kibera, the largest slum in Africa with a population of over one million. That’s a far cry from Pine Valley.
It was an overwhelming and eye-opening experience. There’s no way, with my American sensibilities, that I could have envisioned what that slum is like, and the circumstances these children are living in. Kibera goes on for miles and miles [much of it with] with no water, no electricity, no sewage system. It’s all rubble. AIDS and HIV is everywhere. The situation is heartbreaking.

Yet still promising?
The children have so little but their spirits are not broken. They have bright eyes, big smiles, they’re curious, they want to learn. They’re so full of potential! You just give them a little bit of attention and they light up. The immediate need is food and goods, but it’s education that will ultimately change the future of Africa.

You weren’t just there to observe. You took action.
We rescued this little boy, Bernard, and took him to this amazing center for abandoned babies that was started by Larry and Frances Jones who launched Feed the Children. He was 2-years-old but, lacking the proper nutrition, he could not yet walk and had all sorts of medical issues. His mother is a 22-year-old single woman with HIV. The father of the child had died. In the Kenyan culture, it’s dictated that the husband’s family disowns the wife. They took all her belongings and she was left alone in this 4-foot-by-8-foot dwelling with nothing but a mattress. She rode with us in the van to the center and she can visit Bernard as often as she wants. The idea is to reunite the mother and child once the child gets proper care. We went in there to lend a helping hand but, in the end, we got to leave and she had to stay. It’s tragic.

How do you not get swept up in the hugeness of it all? The situation there seems insurmountable.
You could get overwhelmed and think there’s no hope, but then you look at the extraordinary work done by Larry and Frances and see the possibilities. They started Feed the Children in 1979 and now the organization is all over the world, including our own country, and you say “Thank God for people like them who don’t get overwhelmed.” The first step for this generation is to feed them and often the only real food these children get is at school—if they’re lucky enough to go to school. The children are so grateful and generous. Some of them eat only part of what they’re given, then take the rest home to share with their families. We visited one of the schools and helped give out a combo of kidney beans and corn, and the children are flourishing on that. Each child must have a uniform to go to school and for only $30 a year Feed the Children can provide a uniform and one to two meals a day. That’s for an entire year! I got a chance to ask the children in the 6th grade class what they want to be. Many want to be doctors. One of the girls wants to be an airplane pilot. They showed such respect for their teacher and each other. When they were fed they lined up starting with the youngest and there was no pushing, no grabbing. It’s amazing. We handed out lollipops and you would have thought we’d given them a pot o’ gold at the end of the rainbow. We brought along some brightly colored rubber balls and you wouldn’t believe how something so simple was so appreciated. It takes so little to make them happy.

Susan, I’ve known you forever and I can hear it in your voice—you’re a changed lady.
The trip was a gift from God, the opportunity of a lifetime. For me and* Erica.

It’s interesting that the audience for New Beginnings doesn’t feel the same way. They don’t want to see this Kenya stuff.
And that’s a huge shock for my character. [When the ratings on the first Kenya show tank] the producer says to Erica, “People don’t expect this from you. They want you to be lighthearted and hopeful and happy, happy, happy. That’s all they want from you.” Erica is really thrown by that but, by coincidence, some people come to the studio for the makeover show and tell her how terrific and meaningful the Kenya show was for them, and she’s re-empowered by that. She sees that there are people out there who do get it! She goes on camera and dutifully tries to do the makeover show but she can’t. She just has to bust out and say what she really feels.

Will this stick? Is this the Erica of the future?
What I love is that this storyline carries on the legacy of [AMC creator] Agnes Nixon, who was famous for bringing big topical issues to daytime drama. It’ll be interesting to see how this changes Erica. We don’t want to lose what people love about the character but I think we’re going to see a deepening of her point of view. We’ll see behavior on her part that mirrors what she witnessed in Kenya. She’ll try to make a positive difference in the world. Maybe there will be more of an earthiness to her. I would like that. Susan Lucci is not going to forget this experience and, from what I’ve seen in scripts so far, neither is Erica Kane.

For more information, go to FeedtheChildren.org.