The
elders identified four principles of community development which
became the foundation of all subsequent work.
DEVELOPMENT FROM WITHIN
Healing and development must come from within the communities
of people who desire change, and must largely be directed by those
people.
NO VISION; NO DEVELOPMENT
If the people have no vision of human possibility other than the
one in which they find themselves, they cannot heal themselves,
they cannot develop and, ultimately, they cannot survive. Culture
is the mother of vision. Developing people need to rediscover
the life-preserving, life-enhancing values and insights of their
own traditional experience.
INDIVIDUAL AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT ARE CONNECTED
The development of individuals, and the development of their families
and communities go hand-in-hand. Personal and social development
are interdependent.
LEARNING IS REQUIRED
Learning drives the process of development. People have to learn
how to live in the world as individuals, families and communities
in new ways that are life-preserving and life-enhancing. Learning
is the fundamental dynamic of human development.
Using these basic principles and analysis Four Worlds began working
with many Indigenous (and other) communities around the world,
engaging people and development organizations in personal growth,
healing and learning processes, and fostering social and community
development.
