May 5, 2010 · A West Virginia University business professor and four students want to use their business skills to help people suffering with HIV and AIDS in Africa. The group recently traveled to South Africa to work with nonprofits that serve people affected by the AIDS pandemic.

This spring WVU Associate Professor Presha Neidermeyer took a small group of students to South Africa where the impact from people infected with AIDS is felt throughout communities.

“It turns out that individuals with HIV and AIDS, their symptoms are strongly related to how well other things in the community are going, for example, whether there’s sufficient food, sufficient housing, nutritional aspects as well as just general medical care,” said Neidermeyer.

Neidermeyer thinks students can help nonprofit organizations that serve communities affected by the AIDS pandemic.

“Many times the not-for-profits can’t really afford to have business professionals employed within the organization and so such volunteerism coming from students is very helpful for the not-for-profit because it allows them to access those skills at an affordable or a free cost in this case,” Neidermeyer said.

Neidermeyer said the students gained a lot from the experience too.

Student Mac Festa, of Ohiopyle, Pa., shared a business plan for micro loans with a nonprofit working on the frontline of the AIDS pandemic.

“Micro lending is a very small loan made to impoverished people, normally women who do not have means to normally get a loan,” Festa explained.

Festa graduates from WVU this month and will work at Centra Bank, but he wants to spend personal time working with the nonprofits he visited in Africa.

Student Tristan Gartin, of Chapmanville, W.Va., discovered through the business course and the trip to Africa, that she wants to work for a nonprofit organization after graduating.

“At the end of the day, when I’m telling someone what I do for a living, I don’t want to just be like, ‘oh, I did someone’s tax returns.’ I want it to be more beneficial at the end of the day, be proud. I mean, I would be proud of saying I did someone’s tax returns, but actually engaging in a conversation, this is what I’m doing; this is what I’m trying to do to help, this is how it is helping,” Gartin said.

One of Neidermeyer’s goals is to encourage business students to consider working with nonprofits when they graduate.

Neidermeyer’s own work with nonprofits that serve people who have HIV and AIDS is ongoing. She’s co-author of the book, “Use What You Have,” about how students and other interested businesses can help these non profits overcome the problems created by the AIDS pandemic.

“I think we’ve been in the United States a little bit isolated in terms of understanding the true cost of the global pandemic, so it’s just difficult for these nonprofits to scale up to meet the needs of the overall community that I think is the biggest problem that they’re experiencing at present,” said Neidermeyer.

Neidermeyer hopes to take more WVU business students to Africa in the future to help nonprofits deal with the individual and community issues caused by the widespread occurrences of HIV and AIDS.

Source: WVPB