The local organising committee welcomes you to South Africa.

Dear Colleagues,

The local organising committee welcomes you to South Africa. With this website we hope to awaken in you a taste for our country. We know that attending the VIIth Congress of the IAAP in Cape Town from 12th – 17th August 2007 will entail a long journey for many of you. We want to assure you that from our side we shall do our utmost to make you feel that it will be worth your while.

In order to prepare you for this happening, we will post on this website information that may be of interest to you. South Africa is far away for most of our colleagues in the IAAP; it may also be an unknown place, with Cape Town literally at the tip of this vast continent – the continent which has been described as the cradle of humankind.

One thing which you will notice is the friendliness of its people – this may have to do with many things, one of them is the concept of Ubuntu. Bishop Desmond Tutu describes it thus:

"Africans have this thing called UBUNTU;
it is about the essence of being human;
it is part of the gift that Africa will give the world.

It embraces hospitality, caring about others,
being able to go the extra mile for the sake of others.

We believe that a person is a person through another person,
that my humility is caught up, bound and inextricably in yours.

When I dehumanise you,
I inexorably dehumanise myself.

The solitary human being is a contradiction in terms
and therefore you seek to work for the common good
because your humanity comes into its own in belonging."

-- The Organising Committee