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No country better encapsulates Africa's challenges and hopes, its weaknesses and strengths, than South Africa. Emerging as a democracy in 1994 after 50 years of social and military struggle against the system of white minority rule known as "Apartheid," (apartness, in Afrikaans, the language of the Dutch, or Boer, settlers of the 17th century), South Africa under the ruling African National Congress (ANC) has become an engine for economic growth, political reform, and ethnic tolerance throughout much of Southern Africa.

Cape Town, the "Mother City," is located at the south-western tip of Africa. Compared to Johannesburg, it has a remarkably relaxed feel for a large city with an intense political history. The University of the Western Cape (UWC) was founded in 1960 as a university for students classified as "Coloured" by the Apartheid government. Today, 10 years after South Africa's emergence as a non-racial democracy, it attracts students from all of South Africa's ethnic groups. Most of its 14,000 students are black or "Coloured," and there is a strong international flavor at UWC, with 1,000 students coming from other African countries, Europe, Asia, and the United States. UWC is on a secure and self-contained campus five miles from the center of Cape Town. AU students attending UWC will live on the campus with African roommates in modern dormitories