“Sting sings in his holiday hit that in Africa, the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears, a BBC presenter takes a selfie with a malnourished Ugandan boy, adding a broken heart emoji, while Bruce Willis saves Monica Bellucci and all of Nigeria from the savage rebels in a Hollywood production.”

Today, I received a copy of Dipo Faloyin’s book “Africa Is Not a Country.” Just in time for Africa Day, which is tomorrow. It’s time to break stereotypes. Because whose day is it? Which of the 54 completely different countries? Is it more about Egypt, Morocco, Congo, or Zambia?

Colonial times are over, but our minds still cling to the narrow associations. Africa, to us, means wild animals, safaris, and hungry children. The consequences of these simplifications still affect the continent’s inhabitants.

Thirty percent of Africa’s borders are straight lines, drawn on the map by the Europeans. This means that although only one-third of the world’s borders run through the continent, 60 percent of all territorial disputes in the International Court of Justice come from Africa. Bent over the map of the continent, the colonizers carved it up without regard to the fact that their straight lines divided interests, tribes, and families.

This year at the Good Factory, we wanted to launch a campaign titled “It’s Not Normal That…” That children are starving, that bombs are falling on people’s heads, that 263 million people worldwide still have to walk at least 30 minutes to get water. We created a campaign script. The idea was sent to an agency to help us publicize the campaign and hit a minefield of stereotypical thinking. We were told to change the idea, to write “It’s sad that…” instead of “It’s not normal.” Because in their opinion, it is completely normal. After all, that’s what Africa is like. Bare, hungry, and dry as a bone.

Africa is not just hunger and wild animals. It is a continent of wonderful people who, due to the mess in the minds of Westerners, have a worse start in life than we do. Our main task at the Good Factory is to level the playing field. Because “it’s not normal that they don’t have a chance.”

Mateusz Gasiński