The emigre, recruited only two months ago by the Greater Philadelphia chapter of the United Nations Association, has taken on this labor of love to boost a nonprofit program that seeks to wipe out a peril that kills or maims 150 Afghans a month.
"I saw hundreds and hundreds of kids who lost their limbs, fingers, toes when they walked through them," recalled Noorzad, who said he was a mujaheddin. "I saw deer, fox, wolves, wild dogs and other small animals and rabbits exploding when they walked through the minefields."
Noorzad has taken on this task for the New York-based nonprofit only two months after 10 urbanites and suburbanites who help run the local chapter stumbled upon him.
They held their monthly meeting at Ariana, an Afghan restaurant at Second and Chestnut Streets in Center City owned by a cousin of Noorzad's.
While dining, Joan Reivich - local Adopt-A-Minefield committee chairwoman - told the owner about their goal.
Reivich, of Lansdowne, Delaware County, whose husband is a Korean War veteran, formed the Adopt-A-Minefield committee in late 1999 with Mike Felker, a Vietnam War medic.
The group raised $16,000 for mine-clearing in Mozambique. After the U.S. bombing that rooted out the Taliban, the group turned its focus to Afghanistan, raising $40,000 so far.
Nationally, Adopt-A-Minefield has raised $6.5 million since it started in 1999, said the group's executive director, Nehela Hadi.
"So many of us knew very little about Afghanistan, and suddenly we knew so much when the [U.S.] war was there and with images of this very, very poor country," Reivich said.
"Then we learned that Afghanistan is the most heavily mined country in the world," she said.
