He sounds like a child with his or her first pellet rifle. "I didn't think I would hit it."

has anyone here said everyone in africa is poor and starving? no. you're simply straw manning the issue. and poorly. why? well because uganda is full of poor people. it's a simple fact. it's 186th in the world in terms of GDP per capita. so fucking what if there are some people in uganda with money. what's your point?

in uganda, 2 million people, mostly children, die each year from water-borne disease for lack of potable water. it costs almost nothing to dig a well.

the ethics of philanthropy are complicated and messy, but this effort is a pretty cut and dry of misuse of funds equating to an unethical act. it's also yet another example (along with OLPC) of the myopic narcissism that drives so much american philanthropy. (e.g "I used to skate. I saw kids have fun. I will support them because I want to)

#2, #3, and #10: sure, a skate park is fun, and it might take a few kids away from ak-47's and machetes, but it's rather bigoted to give money or support to things like OLPC or skate parks when the nation considered suffers from chronic poverty, is close to the bottom in terms of GDP per capita and life expectancy. To say "but they need to have fun" or "well, they'll not be in gangs" is almost as offensively ignorant as the effort itself. many people die in Uganda every day from problems that could be solved with a few CENTS of salt. It's be nice if the people in Uganda could have their basic needs met AND have a skate park, but, well, that's not going to happen soon. until then, squandering the precious few dollars on skate parks is simply ridiculous.