I do not pity you, I do not see you or Africa as only poor. The very reason I am calling you out like this is because I see you as quite "equal". You are clearly not from a poor family, yet you ask for money for your personal luxury. Anyone where I am from would feel deeply ashamed to do so and would consider it to be wrong. If one of my friends did this I would call them out too. If you were from the USA, the UK or central Europe, people would not donate for you but would shit-storm over your request. You realize that, right? So don't call "single story" so quickly when you are benefitting from it like this.

> You had one story of Africa, I have given you another. I suggest googling some more. Read my campaign again. You'll realize I'm not telling people to pity me, but see how awesome I am - because I am - and help me get even better!

Martha, I perfectly well realize this whole campaign is all about YOU and making YOURSELF better and that is what I am calling you out for. Like you are saying yourself, it is all about you and "how great you are", then you have confirmed what I called you out for above: being self-centered and egoistic. You are asking charity for nothing but personal gain. You are asking people's money for yourself but now that you have the chance, you spend it on yourself instead of better passing it on to people who CLEARLY need it more than you. People who are going blind, who starve to death, who die at or from child birth, people who never had a chance to begin with.

Do you not feel ashamed in the face of so much human misery? To be asking strangers to pay for what would be considered a luxury trip for your own personal education? Again, you really do not need this trip to further your knowhow and skills, it is completely optional and "nice to have". Nothing more.

If you were really about giving back to the people in education, you could have asked for knowhow, for used books, for hardware and you could set up a local school to teach women in Kenya right now, instead of going on a lavish trip to NYC just for your own good. But it is all about you, just like you said.

One sided story? Are you arguing these facts? In your own and in countries right next to yours. Are you trying to tell us Africa does not face huge problems?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenya#Health

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanzania#Health

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda#Poverty

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda#Health

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sudan#Humanitarian_situat...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopia#Health

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somalia#Health

Are you trying to show me Africa is not overwhelmingly ranked "third world" for all these problems and the terrible humanitarian situations throughout the continent?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World

Does this not humble you? Do you not agree that money should clearly go to people who need it MUCH more than you? To survive.

I have no doubt where you are living life is beautiful and Africa is beautiful. I hope you realize how obviously fortunate you are to be in a position where you are getting an education, to be in a position where you can do an internship and then be stuck with the first-world-problem of making a decision between becoming a doctor or a programmer. When people in your country and countries just around the corner are just dying and they never had a choice. And yes, in the face of what is going on around the world I do consider myself to be fortunate and I am so happy to have been born here into this life. I am not the ignorant white man you are suspecting me to be.

You ask for people's money in charity, yet you would rather spend more than 5 grand on your personal gain for your personal benefit and you turn a blind eye to what is going on around you.

Where I am from many people your age could not afford such a nice trip and three months in NYC, although they are from the "first world" and many of them have contributed significantly more to open source and free software than running a local website for a trendy language.

Is "gender imbalance" amongst generally comparatively well-off, middle class people really a problem of higher priority than all the humanitarian issues listed above?

Just answer me this: seeing all this, do you really think what you are doing is OK and ethically and morally correct? The right choice?