By CHRISTIAN MONTERROSA Reporter
Dr. Marna Geisler first laid eyes on the land and people of Myanmar while on vacation in 2005. But while many people’s first instinct would be to move to their newly beloved location, Geisler began thinking how she could use her medical expertise to help the underdeveloped country.
After forming a partnership with the Myanmar Compassion Project, a group of local doctors that run mobile clinics, Geisler’s medical mission grew into her own full-blown nonprofit organization, now known as the Student Action Volunteer Effort.
SAVE works to help patients that have limited or no access to doctors and expand the horizons of students who also want to make a difference.
Alison Howard, 18, was one of those students hoping to make a small change in the world and has now been to Myanmar four times and counting. She has learned how to identify and clean fungal infections and can determine certain symptoms that can speed up the process of a medical consultation.
Howard said one doctor can see up to 100 patients in a day, and she helps in any way she can. With trips lasting 10 to 14 days, the organization finds a way for students of every experience level to get involved and safely participate.
“What’s great is that students can be involved at any level,” Howard said in an interview with the Palisadian-Post. “So if a student maybe is not so good with seeing blood, they’ll be in eyeglasses so they’ll help children try on different eye glasses, and look through reading books and help kids who never even knew they had a problem with eyesight.”
Howard graduated high school in El Segundo, but has spent much time in Pacific Palisades with her father who is vice principal at Palisades Charter High School.
Because of her close relationship with Geisler and SAVE, Howard plans to start her own nonprofit one day and organize medical missions of her own, closely following the doctors footsteps. She plans to seek her EMT certification while learning more about finances to be able to coordinate both sides of a nonprofit.
“Dr. Marna Geisler saw that students were needing service hours and they would go on service trips and sometimes come back and tell her about how they went to Uganda and paid all this money and all they did was build one sandbox and the rest [of the time] they went sightseeing,” Howard said.
“That’s still great that they got to experience the culture but something that Marna was really passionate about is that she wanted to make a difference and also show these students in the Palisades and Santa Monica, how they can make a real change and how they can really go into those local and rural areas and see the truth—not just what those tourist sites want to show you.”
Howard said she has always felt safe while traveling the troubled country, all thanks to the coordination and planning by Serendipity Travel in Myanmar.
“My mom even says now, ‘Sometimes I think you’re even safer in Myanmar with them than if you were going to Downtown LA or going to concerts,’ because it’s just such a family,” she said. Howard keeps in regular contact with friends she has made in Myanmar over social media and has built personal connections with all of them.
With SAVE, students spend the majority of their time contributing to the cause, visiting different orphanages and monasteries to set up medical clinics with the help of local doctors.
“We’re creating more long-lasting solutions. Fundraising for two water filters that will help provide better drinking water. Cleaning dishes, clothes and yourself. Making sure that were donating these to orphanages that are in severe need,” she said, noting that dirt brown water and terrible conditions were far too common in Myanmar.
Clearly determined to continue on this path, Howard urges other students to try it too. There is no age limit or previous experience required—just the will to help those in less fortunate situations.
For those with more severe illnesses outside the scope of services offered by SAVE, the organization arranges a hospital stay and appropriate care free of charge to the patient ensuring they get what they need.
“Last year we met a child with a hole in his heart and now he’s being consistently kept up with and he’s seeing a doctor all because Dr. Geisler makes sure that those payments continue to be sent for him,” Howard said.
“My life has been changed because of this organization and I want to help change the lives of others and help others see similar things that I saw.”
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