An ambitious plan to help hundreds of young girls halfway around the world get an education drew a sizable crowd to Diablo Country Club Thursday night as members of Americans For Philanthropy tried to raise $75,000 to help a Bay Area woman build a girls' school in Afghanistan.

29-year-old Zhora Aziz moved to the Bay Area from Afghanistan when she was 12. Now she wants to give something back.

KTVU recently sat down with Aziz to talk about her plan and her inspiration.

“Every little girl is asking for this. And the villagers get together on mostly Fridays and they are talking about this,” said Aziz. “Like ‘Hopefully we will have a school for our girls!’ They are very excited.”

Aziz grew up in the district of Farza, a cluster of 14 villages north of Afghanistan's capital of Kabul.

Even though the bay area is her longtime home, she said she has never forgotten where she is from.

“Every day I have been thinking ‘How should I build this school?’” said Aziz.

Aziz considers herself fortunate to have received an American education. She earned a business and finance degree from Cal State Hayward and now works at an accounting firm in Berkeley.

Aziz said her education has provided her with a wealth of opportunities; the kind of opportunities that many girls and young women in Afghanistan go without.

During a visit to Afghanistan in 2006, Aziz said she saw firsthand the devastation caused by 30 years of war and the repressive Taliban regime which refused to let girls go to school.

“It was sad. It was really sad to see it,” remembered Aziz. “So many girls they came to me and said ‘Oh my God’ -- in Farza they were telling me – ‘We heard you know how to read and write.’ I was like ‘Yes.’ And they said ‘Can you teach us?’”

In Farza, Aziz said there is a school for boys, but not for girls. So Aziz bought a ½-acre piece of land with plenty of space to build a 10-room school house for up to 300 girls.

Budd MacKenzie of Lafayette founded Trust In Education, an organization dedicated to helping rebuild and improve the quality of life for people in Afghanistan. The group is working with Aziz to realize her dream.

“One of the things that was great about this project was that Zorha's an insider. She is from the village. she is working with the village and the village leaders and they are going to build it,” said MacKenzie. “We are just going to provide the materials. So we know this is a project they love, because they are willing to do all the work.”

MacKenzie said he travels to Afghanistan twice a year. Currently he's working with 19 villages, helping provide farmers with seed and fertilizer and children with places to learn.

“When I am over there, I am not military. I'm not government. I'm not in the business of providing humanitarian aid,” explained MacKenzie. “I'm just somebody who represents Americans' who care."

MacKenzie said in Afghanistan there are huge inequities between the way men and women are treated. That's why he pledged his full support when he heard about Aziz's mission to build a school.

“The education is the liberator. It's the thing,” said MacKenzie. “If you have a women that can read, write, and or has a marketable skill, she is no longer dependent on a man.”

Aziz and MacKenzie think it will take $75,000 to build the school. Fremont bank chairman Alan Hyman said he is also committed to helping Aziz fulfill her dream.

Hyman is the founder of Americans For Philanthropy, the group that sponsored Thursday night's fundraiser at Diablo Country Club and helps raise money for numerous international relief efforts.

‘The thing that really interested me was how little money it would have taken or it does take to make a difference in those countries,” said Hyman. “We have so much in America and they seem to have so little.”

Other people such as Diablo's Sue Paulson, a mother of three, also are trying to rally support.

“What has made it exciting for me to get to know Zhora,” said Paulson. “Her enthusiasm to…help her village where she's from -- where her family is from -- like I would want to do in my own village, to bring school to girls is just so cool.”

Aziz believes schools are vital for the future of her nation.

“We just want to bring changes,” said Aziz.”It will take some time, but if we can help, it will be really nice.”