AGRADECIMENTOS Sempre se trabalha em vários, mesmo quando não se vê, ainda mais quando é visível. Deleuze, Conversações Flavia, amável orientadora, obrigada por me oferecer a sua atenção, seu rigor delicado e sua confiança. Jovens, coordenadores das organizações sociais e todos os entrevistados que doaram tempo e memórias, agradeço pela generosidade do diálogo. Maju, Shê, Daniel Carvalho, Gleice Guerra, Valquiria Fagundes, Helena Faroamigos rarossou grata a cada um pela companhia e parceria no

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... ensamento e na vida; creio profundamente que sem amizade nenhuma obra seria possível. Deise e Angela, irmãs queridas, obrigada por me fazerem acreditar que tenho algo ao qual pertencer e por pertencer, me salvarem da solidão e do desamparo; sem vocês me perderia de mim mesma. Carlos, meu homem, obrigada pelo silêncio quando precisei de quietude e por sua discreta e carinhosa escolta (caso sucumbisse ou apenas precisasse de uma xícara de café...) em todos os momentos e, inclusive nesse, de tantos esforços dedicados a dissertar. Pedro, meu filho, agradeço a cumplicidade no amor às palavras e o abraço de cada dia, é você que abençoa o meu presente e que acende meu porvir. Antenor, meu lindo pai, irei sempre me espelhar em seu exemplo de alegria e superação, obrigada por nunca desistir de sorrir. Disse: -É tudo inútil, se o último porto só pode ser a cidade infernal, que está lá no fundo, e que nos suga num vórtice cada vez mais estreito. E Polo: -O inferno dos vivos não é algo que será; se existe é aquele que já está aqui, o inferno no qual vivemos todos os dias, que formamos estando juntos. Existem duas maneiras de não sofrer. A primeira é fácil para a maioria das pessoas: aceitar o inferno e tornar-se parte deste até o ponto de deixar de percebê-lo. A segunda é arriscada e exige atenção e aprendizagem contínuas: tentar saber reconhecer quem e o que, no meio do inferno, não é inferno, e preservá-lo, e abrir espaço. ABSTRACT This study offers some clues to understand the current implications amid youth, city and social policies through a case study of a social program called Urban Youths. The study focus in possible meanings of public actions targeting poor young residents of urban suburb area and the possibilities opened by these actions to converge in guarantees of the right to the city. This research expects to contribute to the debate on the management of projects and social policies, socio-exclusion and its impact in ways of youth life, and with studies aiming to rethink models and methodologies of youth education, assuming the power of the city as a formative space. Methodology proposed by Urban Youths is markedly influenced by contemporary theories focused on the effects of modernityor postmodernityin the ways of thinking and acting today. The study is qualitative and used interviews as main tool for data collection, from which derive descriptions of the experiences of both the young people enrolled in the program and the players involved in its management. The edition studied is the third one, conducted from 2007 to 2008, in Grajaú and Lajeado (São Paulo city) districts, promoted by a bank's foundation, , local social organizations, municipal and state governments and other public and private companies, which interactions raised mistrust and hopes. The power of contribution of this articulated network was analyzed for meeting challenges of cities and youth, based on the understanding that the crisis of the cities transcend poverty indicators and urban chaos, also being a political crisis. The social vulnerability indicators used by Urban Youths as measurement criteria to choose areas of intervention are assessed, revealing the limits and scope of the program. Regarding the main search results, it is possible to state the primacy of culture over the geography: at Urban Youths, the access of young people to spaces, artifacts and resources of the cityits main objectiveswere placed according to the expansion of cultural and relational field of youngsters, despite the recognition that the young guard, nowadays, different ways of sociability and urban space usage. This challenges the thesis of a possible socio-territorial confinement to which they would be subjected. Making an option for the culture, the Urban Youths takes a major shift: leaves aside meager contents of labor market preparationusually the objective of programs for poor youthfor the sake of exploration, experimentation and production of different cultural contributions in the city. Participation in Urban Youth was, for involved players, a formative experience, with repercussions (in different dimensions and meanings) in their life choices, as related to studies, work, and relationship with the city or with other groups of belonging, as to themselves. Overcoming invisibility, for example, takes place in the narratives of young people as the possibility of looking and being seen, recognized, valued by their peers, educators and various other "non-native" players in the city.