Stefan Booth Online

Stefan the Rain King

Dancing on Ice star Stefan Booth is due to get married to his long-term girlfriend Debbie Flett in seven weeks time. The only problem is that the entire guest list for the ceremony together with their acceptances and refusals, was logged onto his mobile phone. And the phone doesn’t work anymore - after being stamped on by a camel.

But it’s a small hardship in comparison to the things that Stefan has witnessed in drought-stricken northern Kenya. “It does put things into perspective“, he says, “when you’ve just come away from meeting people who’ve had to bury their children who’ve starved to death because of the drought.”

Not everyone with a wedding to arrange would want to find the time to visit aid workers in the Third World. Nor would many expect a star who’d just reached the pinnacle of their TV career to date to leave the country on such a mercy mission rather than capitalise on their new-found fame.

After 13 million viewers watched The Bill star Stefan, 26 and his skating partner Kristina Cousins (now Lenko) finish second in the TV hit of the year so far, ITV1’s Dancing on Ice, his agents must have been rubbing their hands with glee as the TV offers flooded in.

Stefan turned his back on them all. He already knew what he wanted to do with his moment in the spotlight. “I don’t care what jobs I’ve missed,” he says. If my TV exposure raises the maximum amount of awareness about what’s happening in Kenya, then that’s more important. “Everyone want’s to do their bit, don’t they? Suddenly I find I’m in a position to help. If I knew this amount of suffering was going on somewhere in the world and didn’t try to do something to help, I’d feel I’d let myself down”.

A regular supporter of the charity World Vision, he says he’d have become a full-time aid worker if he hadn’t gone into acting.

Out in remote northern Kenya, things are bleak. Four million people are now on the brink of starvation. The drought is the worst for a decade. Ironically, as Stefan arrived, the rains came with him. But the people’s joy at the sight of the rain was short-lived. It came down so fiercely that it was impossible to collect and keep and the resulting drop in temperature from the deluge was enough to kill off what was left of the malnourished livestock of goats. People who had little in the first place suddenly found that all they has left - their goats - had perished.

“The goats get pneumonia and die,” says Stefan. “The first thing you notice is the stench of rotting flesh - the smell of dead animals which used to be people’s livelihoods. You could see these people watching their lives crumbling in front of them. This is the start of the famine. First the animals die, next it’s the people. We need to tackle this issue now rather than later.”

The weakest of the people are already dying. Stefan was in tears when we came across one family who’d lost two children. The community elder, Kole Lolimo, a man in his mid-forties, took Stefan to see the grave of his seven-year-old son Ngipeyok, which is marked by only a few stones and a little vegetation.

This is the second of his sons to die from malnutrition during the drought. Kole gazed around his small settlement of huts and the children playing around them, wondering how many would survive.

“That was the toughest moment of our visit,” says Stefan. “Kole was a lovely man and his children were dying because of problems that could be easily solved. So many people that I have met have such extraordinary strength of character. They have no food, no wealth, but their personal resources are amazing. You can’t help but be moved by their ability to cope emotionally in circumstances that would destroy most people.”

The tragedy of the Kenyan drought is that it’s hit a proud and normally independent people. We were taken to an abandoned dam project, where the locals had tried to build something to store the rain when it finally fell. But after months of little or no food, they hadn’t the strength to keep up the digging and hadn’t finished it in time. “They were working so hard they were killing themselves with the effort of digging because they were so weak,” says Stefan.

But there is good news. In the areas where boreholes and wells had been dug and irrigation systems installed, the people can grow crops and feed their livestock. Here, the children are healthy and strong.

“People think of Africa as a bottomless pit,” says Stefan. “Everyone’s great at helping out when there are pictures of starving children on their TV screens, but what’s needed now is to help fund the projects that will allow these people to help themselves, rather than wait for another disaster. There is long-term hope here. There shouldn’t be any need for people to keep coming back asking for aid year after year. Africa’s problems aren’t simple, but the solutions are.”

By Fraser Massey of NOW Magazine in the issue dated 3rd May 2006

Stefan visited Kenya on behalf of World Vision, an international relief and development agency working in 100 countries around the world. For more information on their work or to donate to the East Africa appeal visit http://www.worldvision.org.uk alternatively you can always donate through the SBO Just Giving page at http://www.justgiving.com/stefanboothonline