15 Years of Care, Humor, and Sometimes Wigs
When you walk into Aliveness Project on a busy afternoon, you can usually find Tom Bichanga somewhere in the kitchen serving members, joking with staff, or sitting in the dining room to make sure everyone feels at home. You may even catch him borrowing a wig from our Office Manager, Hanna, just to make someone laugh.
That’s Tom: our class clown, our cultural bridge, our heart of Aliveness.
Tom joined Aliveness back in 2010, starting as a condom distributor in the dining room. “By the end of this year, it’ll be 15 years,” he says with a grin. “No wonder I’m ready to retire!”
But over those 15 years, Tom has worn nearly every hat imaginable- from Prevention Coordinator, Case Management, Member Services, to Director of DEI and he runs our food programs! “As more programs came available I was the test victim to work them!” He jokes. His work has transformed not only Aliveness, but the way our community connects with African-born members living with or at risk of HIV.
“I lost close cousins to AIDS in Kenya,” Tom shares. “I wanted to understand why people who acquire HIV weren’t getting treated and why it wasn’t curable.”
Before moving to the U.S., Tom volunteered in Kenya distributing condoms and safer sex kits in schools. When he came to Minnesota more than 35 years ago, he continued that work through a local Kenyan organization, Mwanyagetinge, doing HIV prevention in the Twin Cities. Eventually, Tom joined Aliveness because he wanted to focus on the care side of HIV, not just prevention.
Tom became more than a staff member, he became a bridge.
Many members from the African-born community come to Aliveness asking “Is Tom here today?” They come because they trust him. They come because he speaks their language both literally and with compassion.
Tom recalls a member story,“I had this person who was here in the U.S. but still getting her HIV medication from Kenya. Once someone told us about that, I sent an outreach person who could show up when her family was not there so her privacy remained intact. We got her medication here in Minnesota, connected her to case management, she didn’t even know Aliveness existed. At first, she didn’t want to eat here, but because we both speak the same language, she trusted me. Now she still comes here.”
Stigma, fear, and isolation still keep too many people from care. “So many people call me from my community,” he says. “The rest of their community doesn’t know that they are HIV positive. They trust me to keep their status private.”
Hennepin County took notice of Tom’s success within African-born communities and asked him to build an entire program from the ground up. That program which Tom led for nearly a decade was instrumental for immigrants in MN.
“One of my proudest accomplishments was when the County came to us and asked Aliveness to do the work. We didn’t even write the grant, they just knew it needed to be here.”
Tom also built the BIPOC and DEI groups at Aliveness, leading an organization-wide access audit that made lasting changes. “We added gender-neutral bathrooms, lowered signage for wheelchair accessibility, we’ve helped make MLK Day and Juneteenth paid holidays.”
But ask Tom what his favorite moments are, and he doesn’t hesitate: “Member cookouts! You see how crazy I get? When members are dancing, I love it so much. I eat with members. If I’m not eating with them, I don’t eat. Members make me feel at home.”
Tom’s approach to HIV care has always been rooted in patience and understanding. “Sometimes people come in angry or scared. It’s not about you,” he says. “It’s about what they’re going through. You separate the person from their challenges. You humanize them.”
Even after he retires in January and returns to Kenya to run Biham School, a school he’s built with his sister, Tom’s legacy will live on here in the communities he uplifted, and the laughter he brought to every room.
“I’ve worked in many jobs,” Tom says, “but the one that’s been the most satisfactory is Aliveness Project.”
Fifteen years later, we couldn’t agree more.
Asante sana, Tom, thank you for being the bridge we’ve always needed.
