Your donation will help fee Cam, an innocent 36-year-old gay cook

Previous donations have freed 56 innocent victims of African homophobia

Donations are urgently needed to free eight prisoners, including Cam, whose story is below. For their safety, in this series of articles the eight prisoners are identified by pseudonyms.
This illustration of Cam was created by the AI program ChatGPT, based on a description of him provided by reporter Steeves Winner.
 
By Steeves Winner
Last year, 36-year-old Cam had a 22-year-old partner, Daniel. Cam worked as a cook, a job that allowed him to support himself and live with dignity.
But all that ended when Daniel’s parents found out about Cam.
They reported him to police, accusing him of seducing their son into a homosexual relationship.
On Dec. 17, 2025, Cam was arrested. With no attorney to represent him, he was promptly tried, convicted and sentenced to two years in prison for homosexuality. In Cameroon, same-sex intimacy is punishable by up to five years in prison
After a quick trial, Cam was sent to Yaoundé Central Prison. He can only leave there if he pays a fine of 196,000 FCFA (about U.S. $350), which he does not have.
In the Yaoundé prison, Cam lives in difficult and precarious conditions. He receives no visits from his family and only an occasional visit from friends, who offer him minimal moral support. Surrounded by homophobic fellow prisoners and homophobic guards, he survives as best he can in an environment of stigmatization, marginalization and threats of violence..
In April, a reporter for Erasing 76 Crimes visited him and seven other innocent prisoners with a delivery of food and hygiene supplies. In interviews with them, the reporter verified that they qualify for help from Project Not Alone. The criterion: They are imprisoned for nothing other than who they love.
That is true of Cam, so he is included in the list of the eight prisoners that the project aims to set free this year. Donated funds will be used to pay Cam’s fine, as well as to pay the expenses of an attorney who will work without pay on Cam’s behalf..
In addition to raising money to set the prisoners free, Project Not Alone is also seeking money to pay for mandatory upgrades of the free Qtalk smartphone app, which has offered private counseling to LGBTQ+ Nigerians since it was launched in 2020.
Please donate to help set the eight prisoners free in Nigeria and Cameroon and ease the burdens of LGBTQ life in Nigeria.
See Also

Project Not Alone is a program of the non-profit St. Paul’s Foundation for International Reconciliation and its Erasing 76 Crimes news site.  U.S. tax-deductible donations to Project Not Alone 2026 may be made via:

PayPal (for U.S. dollar contributions). For other currencies, send PayPal donations to stpaulsfdr@gmail.com
DonorBox
GoFundMe
Alternatively, you could send a check to St. Paul’s Foundation, c/o Colin Stewart, 5517 Paseo del Lago East Unit 1B, Laguna Woods CA 92637 USA. Please write “Project Not Alone” on the memo line and send an email to info@76crimes.com to let us know it’s coming.

Steeves Winner, the author of this article, is a Cameroonian journalist who writes under a pseudonym. Contact him at steeves.w@yahoo.com.
See also: