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Four Worlds

16 PRINCIPLES FOR RECREATING THE WORLD
At our founding meeting with Indigenous elders and spiritual leaders, four foundation principles were articulated about how the world can be changed. In the course of diverse work with thousands of individuals and hundreds of communities, we continued to learn. The original four principles unfolded to become sixteen.

 


These sixteen principles continue to guide our work in everything that we do.

As the four foundation principles were applied in community development work they were expanded and refined to sixteen working principles.


HUMAN BEINGS CAN TRANSFORM THEIR WORLD

The way things are now is not permanent. The web of our relationships with others and the natural world, which has given rise to the problems we face as a human family can be changed. The world can be changed.

DEVELOPMENT COMES FROM WITHIN
The process of human and community development unfolds from within each person, relationship, family, organization, community, or nation.

HEALING
Healing is a necessary part of development. Healing the past, closing up old wounds and learning healthy habits of thought and action to replace dysfunctional thinking and disruptive patterns of human relations is a necessary part of the process of sustainable development.

JUSTICE
Every person (regardless of gender, race, age, culture, religion) must be accorded equal opportunity to participate in the process of healing and development and to receive a fair share of the benefits.

NO VISION. NO DEVELOPMENT
A vision of who we can become, and what a sustainable world would be like, works as a powerful magnet, drawing us to our potential. No vision, no development.

CULTURE
Authentic development is culturally based. Healing and development must be rooted in the wisdom, knowledge and living processes of the culture of the people. Culture itself develops as human potentiality unfolds.

INTERCONNECTEDNESS
Everything is connected with everything else. Therefore, any aspect of our healing and development is related to all the others (personal, social, cultural, political, economic, etc.). When we work on any one part, the whole web of our world is affected.

THE HURT OF ONE IS THE HURT OF ALL;
 THE HONOUR OF ONE IS THE HONOUR OF ALL
The basic fact of our oneness as a human family means that development for some at the expense of well-being for others is not acceptable or sustainable.




UNITY
Unity means oneness. Without unity, the common oneness that makes (seemingly) separate human beings into "community" is impossible. Disunity is the primary disease of community. No unity, no development.

PARTICIPATION
Participation is the active engagement of the minds, hearts and energy of the people in the process of their own healing and development. No participation, no development.

SPIRIT
Human beings are both material and spiritual in nature. It is therefore inconceivable that human community could become whole and sustainable without bringing our lives into balance with the requirements of our spiritual nature.

MORALS AND ETHICS
Sustainable human and community development requires a moral foundation. When morals decline and basic ethical principles are violated, development stops.

LEARNING IS THE ENGINE OF CHANGE
Human beings are learning beings. We begin learning while we are still in our mother's womb, and unless something happens to close of our minds and paralyze our capacities, we keep on learning throughout our entire lives. Learning is the fundamental dynamic of human development.

SUSTAINABILITY
To sustain something means to enable it to continue for a long time. Authentic development does not use up or undermine what it needs to keep on going.

MOVE TO THE POSITIVE
Solving the critical problems in our lives and communities is best approached by visualizing and moving into the positive alternative that we wish to create, and by building on the strengths we already have, rather than on giving away our energy fighting the negative.

BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE
The most powerful strategies for change always involve positive role modeling and the creation of living examples of the solutions we are proposing. By walking the path, we make the path visible.