Palisadian Navid Brian Noori is seeking donations for an upcoming medical mission to orphanages and monastic primary schools in Myanmar through SAVE (Student Action Volunteer Effort).
“We would like small toys, soccer jerseys for kids (AYSO), reading/sunglasses for adults, travel/hotel-sized shampoo or soap and toothbrushes/toothpaste,” said Noori, who is also seeking small earrings. “Many girls have their ears pierced at a young age, but do not have real earrings to put in place, so they use a piece of wood to keep the piercing open.”
Collection boxes are located at the Pacific Palisades Chamber of Commerce office, 15330 Antioch.
SAVE was created in 2006 by Palisadian Dr. Marna Geisler, who has a pediatrics office in Santa Monica. The goal was to provide free health care for people in Myanmar’s underserved areas through annual medical missions and collaborations with Myanmar Compassion Project, based in that country.
Geisler organized a team of medical professionals, high school students and other volunteers, who made the first trip to Myanmar.
Three years later, the team was accompanied by a plastic surgeon, who performed numerous small procedures, including cleft-lip repairs. That same year, volunteer Nancy Mansfield became involved, and has since become a team leader, managing the charity as well as forming a 501(c)(3), which means donations are tax deductible.
Noori, who attended Windward School and then Occidental, became involved with SAVE after graduating from college.
“I was an assistant language teacher in Japan, but after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in 2011, I returned home,” Noori said. He spent a month on a Navajo reservation shadowing physicians, and then went on his first mission with SAVE. “That’s when I decided to pursue medicine.”
In 2012-2013, he took the prerequisites for medical school and that fall enrolled in a master’s degree program at Georgetown
University, studying bio-hazardous threat agents and emerging infectious diseases. Noori is applying to medical school, but plans to join the SAVE team when it leaves for Myanmar on December 25, returning January 5.
Last year, SAVE provided care to 868 people, ranging in age from infants to 60 years. To volunteer, visit studentactionvolunteereffort.org.
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