Chris Bialan

The Businessman

Chris Bialan is the man behind Affinity Vision. Having been brought up in London’s slums in the 1950s, Chris understands from his own experiences how challenging disadvantaged beginnings can be. From the tender age of six, Chris was already out in the world making money and using it to help others, his siblings. 

By his late-teens, Chris found he was naturally good with people and blessed with a brilliant financial mind and commercial streak. Forging an early career in commercial finance, Chris spent three decades as a highly successful broker and business consultant, helping to fund and shape more than 500 care home projects with £5 billion overall in funding.  

In 2003, he transitioned from broker to owner-operator by acquiring his first care home and taking equity stakes in a further 16 over the following three years. After third-party managers failed to meet his standards, Chris founded Affinity Care Management in 2007 to run his homes directly.

Today, the Affinity Care Group is widely recognised for the quality of its services. With a portfolio of care homes specialising in complex needs care, the Group consistently receives strong reports from the Care Quality Commission (CQC), a reflection of its high standards in safeguarding, leadership, and person-centred care. Affinity’s success rests on Chris’s guiding principle to create a supportive and happy workplace where brilliant people flourish and want to stay.

This robust financial platform has allowed Chris to expand his focus into philanthropy and community development. The Affinity Care Group is not just a business success; it is the engine room for Chris’s broader mission to support people and transform lives.

Supporting People Experiencing Homelessness

Chris’ mission to support people experiencing homelessness began on the streets of Bournemouth one night in 2010 when Chris and his wife were out for an evening’s entertainment at the local cinema. The couple came across a young woman called Tracy aged 23 begging outside the cinema and after chatting for a while to her, Chris realised how easy it is for someone to fall through the cracks. 

That night, Chris bought and distributed 20 meals to homeless individuals across Bournemouth and was so moved by the number of people he found living on the streets, that he began cooking and delivering hot meals himself every night, eventually feeding up to 70 people every night. This became the foundation of his long-term, hands-on engagement with people affected by homelessness.

Supporting the Bees

Chris then had a happy encounter with Serge Seliukov who worked at the care homes and was, by chance, a beekeeper. Serge talked to him about the environmental challenges endangering the bee population. This gave Chris the inspiration to combine running a business both to benefit bees and the homeless people he was helping. 

Bee Mission’s pilot scheme was launched at the Affinity Care homes, grounds and gardens in 2020. Chris was inspired and wanted to encourage other people to get passionate about bees, and their importance to the environment, “Following Bee Mission’s success at the care homes, I began to think where else we could put hives, and this is where the idea of fostering hives came about.”

It was during this time that Chris met Amy Foster aka ‘Aunty Bee’ who quickly became integral to Bee Mission. Amy cooks and prepares hot meals to be delivered to about 50 people three times a week in Bournemouth. 

Chris became friendly with lots of the people he supported but at that time including a vulnerable couple, Kim and Ashley who had survived six years on the streets. During the pandemic, Chris rehoused the couple in emergency accommodation that he funded himself and later secured and financed a house where they could begin to rebuild their lives.

Chris gave Kim and Ashley a small batch of honey and, with support, the couple took on the task of branding, marketing, and production. An unexpected outcome was a realisation that there was a way to address the urgent plight of rough sleepers, while combining bee conservation with social reintegration and skills training. 

Bee Mission now operates as a Community Interest Company (CIC) aiming to install and manage 500 beehives across Dorset and Hampshire, while providing valuable skills and work for people who have experienced homelessness. 

Affinity Vision

Chris was first introduced to the needs of children in The Gambia in 2014 through his sister-in-law whose friend was involved in a nursery and primary school with 200 children from impoverished communities called Jofi Modern School in Serrekunda. 

Touched by the school’s story, Chris started by sponsoring six children a month at £25 a month each  so they could go to school. Six soon became 50 children that he sponsored himself and then Chris set up a scheme to connect the elderly residents in his UK care homes with the children, creating surrogate grandparent relationships that delighted both sides. 

Jofi Modern School's curriculum concludes at Grade 6 when the children are aged 11 or 12 after which students with no financial backing have nowhere to go to continue their education. This situation became clear to Chris when he heard about how one of his earliest sponsored students would not be able to train for her dream career as a nurse. 

This prompted Chris to purchase and extensively renovate a derelict site for a new primary and secondary school which would allow children to complete their education. Chris worked with Julie Maio at Jofi School to turn the ruined buildings into three classrooms with a kitchen, toilets, water access, and activity zones tailored to young learners. The project opened in September 2024 with 75 students all sponsored by Chris. 

Chris also supports the secondary school’s emphasis on both academic and vocational skills. He helped fund new facilities for Home Economics and Life Skills, including sewing machines, tailoring rooms, and dedicated spaces for crafts and culinary training. The five-year plan has the ultimate goal of empowering young Gambians to become job creators within their own communities. 

Chris’s efforts have not stopped at education. He has also supported Bansang Hospital, a struggling government facility, by funding staff accommodation to attract healthcare professionals. In addition, he also became involved in a child amputee programme. 

Staying in healthcare, Chris appointed Alpha Baldeh, a Gambian healthcare professional, to become the Affinity Vision president in The Gambia. The pair have been working together to establish the Alpha Community Health Centre with Chris’s vital support to bring essential medical services, education, and training to remote villages. 

The Alpha Community Health Centre is being built in cooperation with Gambian ministers and local chiefs specifically to serve rural villages located at least 12 kilometres from the nearest health facility making access to healthcare services challenging.  

Chris then founded the Affinity Vision Charity to support all the third sector organisations that he’s started or supports in both the UK and The Gambia to help make them sustainable and self-sufficient. 

Through Affinity Vision, Chris has also tackled wider community development. He funded waterholes in remote villages, enabling irrigation, sanitation, and agriculture. He provided tractors and helped villagers develop sustainable farming.  

Chris is an active promoter of Affinity Vision and uses his car racing involvement, the cars themselves as well as the suits the drivers wear, to advertise the charity. He also gives away honey at race meetings, displays printed banners and distributes brochures to help promote awareness of the mission. 

Chris’s philanthropic contributions are estimated to total £1.3 million while he has also invested around 18,000 hours of his time on projects to help others. Chris’ story is one of practical generosity, fuelled by a belief in unlocking potential and building bridges between communities thousands of miles apart. Chris’s role is not merely that of a benefactor, but of a catalyst and through Affinity Vision, he is transforming lives, not just by giving, but by planting seeds for long-term growth using his platform to inspire further engagement and support.