During this period, the adoption of an evolving framework for action has enabled the friends to . . . think in terms of process, to read their immediate reality and assess their resources in the places where they live, and to make plans on that basis . . .

Giving shape to the community’s efforts is a framework for action defined by the global Plans of the Faith. This framework promotes the transformation of the individual in conjunction with social transformation, as two inseparable processes. Specifically, the courses of the institute are intended to set the individual on a path in which qualities and attitudes, skills and abilities, are gradually acquired through service—service intended to quell the insistent self, helping to lift the individual out of its confines and placing him or her in a dynamic process of community building.