The worldview of a community is the perspective through which it views and perceives its world. Worldviews significantly impact how the community understands its poverty and the way out of it. This is particularly true in the developing world, where by default the community's worldview is often fatalistic, devoid of hope, and laden with the presumption that the supernatural powers on high never operate in their favor.
As a result, the assumption is that the powers that control their destiny do so in a way that exploits them, and that any attempt to counter their situation will result in a backlash from their gods, spirits, and ancestors. Life is seen as a burden to be endured, with a futile purpose. This worldview offers little hope, and needs to be addressed if an organization wants to see that community transformed.
The biblical worldview, by contrast, holds that God, who is omnipotent and eternal, is also a loving God who has played an active role in all of His creation, with which He seeks to actively engage. Because He is a personal God, He cares intensely for all of His creation and is deeply concerned about its welfare. God wants mankind to restore a personal relationship with Him, with each other, and with the rest of creation. Only when this happens can mankind experience the shalom that God has provided. For Christian program implementers, holistic development involves understanding the community's worldview and addressing it so that, through a balanced development strategy, the community experiences shalom.
The HWVA tool
Over the years, Dr. Jayakaran has developed a participatory tool called the Holistic Worldview Analysis (HWVA). It allows NGOs to analyze a community's worldview, understand its survival strategy, and respond to its needs with active community participation. The uniqueness of the tool is that it enables the development intervention to address both the empirical and the spiritual components of development needs in a way that is balanced and holistic.