For every $20 gift, LGBTI prisoners get $40 worth of help
Colin Stewart is a 45-year journalism veteran living in Southern…
Project Not Alone is raising funds to feed and free 13 LGBTI prisoners.
A generous donor has offered a 1-to-1 match for $1,000 worth of new donations to Project Not Alone, which aims to feed and free 13 imprisoned LGBTI victims of homophobia in Cameroon and Nigeria.
That means every $10 donation will turn into $20 worth of food deliveries or fines paid.
Project Not Alone 2023 uses 100% of donated money to pay fines and court costs of convicted prisoners, which earns them early release; for legal expenses of attorneys working pro-bono for those not yet put on trial; and for deliveries of hygiene supplies and supplementary food to make prisoners’ lives more bearable during the months while they await release from their dirty prison cells, surviving on one filthy, poorly cooked meal a day.
Project Not Alone is seeking donations to cover those costs.
So far, $2,971 has been donated. If readers contribute a further $1,000, the total will reach nearly $5,000. That will be enough to pay the fines of every convicted prisoner and almost all the legal expenses of those still awaiting trial.
For more information about this year’s Project Not Alone, click here. For this year’s first two articles about specific detainees, read
- “Alan and Otto, victims of homophobia, are ready to leave prison — if donors allow” and
- “Lesbian couple faces more than a year in prison — unless you help”.
St. Paul’s Foundation for International Reconciliation, the financial sponsor of this site and Project Not Alone, collects U.S. tax-deductible donations for the project and transfers 100 percent of them to Cameroon and Nigeria to feed and free the LGBTI prisoners there.
Your donation is needed. Taken together with others’ gifts:
- $20 (with the match, $40) is enough to cut a prisoner’s sentence by two weeks.
- $100 (with the match, $200) is enough to cut that sentence by 10 weeks.
- $200 (with the match, $400), is enough to cut the sentence of two prisoners by 10 weeks.
- $333 (with the match, $666), will pay that fine in full for two prisoners, eliminating the entire extra 16 weeks of imprisonment for both of them. (To be clear: Paying the fine in full is needed to set the prisoners free early, which is why many donations are needed.)
- $8 (with the match, $16) will pay for two sacks of onions for delivery to prisoners.
- $23 (with the match, $46) will pay for two large sacks of peanuts to be shared by prisoners.
- $18 (with the match, $36) will pay two prison admission fees for each of two LGBTI activists delivering food to LGBTI prisoners.
U.S. tax-deductible donations to Project Not Alone 2023 may be made via:
- The “Donate” button on the Facebook page of the St. Paul’s Foundation (Our favorite because Facebook charges us no transaction fees, but the button might not appear on mobile devices.)
- PayPal
- DonorBox
- By sending a check to St. Paul’s Foundation, 21 Marseille, Laguna Niguel CA 92677 USA.) Please write “Project Not Alone” on the memo line.