OAKLAND — African Immigrants Social and Cultural Services is holding an event Saturday to raise money to bring educational services to rural Tanzania.

The organization is led by Christine Akello Nyanda Chacha, who was orphaned in Tanzania at age 3 and raised by people in her village. She became a lawyer in Tanzania and now lives in El Sobrante with her family. She teaches high school in Richmond but keeps closes ties to her village in Tanzania.

This summer, Laura B. Mason of Berkeley and her daughters, Rachel Gordon, 21, and Lily Gordon, 15, traveled to Chacha's hometown of Shirati for the third time with volunteers, including UC Berkeley engineering interns.

The purposes of the trip were to teach local women's group there how to use a brick oven the group helped build and give the women baking lessons. They now make 70-100 loaves of bread each day, Mason said. During their trip, they also fed 65 orphans a day and built a rainwater harvest system for the villagers.

The group also has worked over the years to complete a vocational school in Shirati, which will open in January and have classes in pre-secondary English, baking and cooking, auto mechanics, and carpentry. They need to raise additional funds to run the school.

The fundraiser is from 6 p.m. to midnight Saturday at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 Ninth St. The cost is $30 for one or $50 for two and includes a traditional African dinner, dessert,