In 2011, the City Government of Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, one of the 12established member cities of the 2014 Soccer World Cup, created a 4-year social program named "Porto Alegre para Todos” (Porto Alegre For All). Besides fulfilling the International Federation of Football Association (FIFA)’s requirements to become a member city, the program had the objective of eradicating the extreme poverty in the Porto Alegre central region, aiming at an emancipation of citizens in such a condition.

In accordance with thestrategic planning, work plan and management tools avalibale for the Program, there were three major subprojects:Project 1) related and aiming to promote the professional inclusion of VTAs (carts) and VTHs Drivers, the program aimed to promote the entry of solid waste collection and waste separation workers in the formal labor market, as a counterpart to the gradual restriction of carts and trolleys circulation in Porto Alegre transit, and was determined by Law No. 3,581 /2008 but in fact, never really performes; Project 2) The program also aimed to promote a complete restructuring of the waste sorting units, looking to transform the reality of these popular enterprises, offering the necessary conditions for the pickers to have better income, well being at work and understanding the potential of their business.Project 3) the program edge also aimed to promote an increase in Environmental Education, enlarging action in schools, universities and municipal public agencies to reflect their inclusion and protection strategies, and looking for the mobilization of the whole city, to contribute and participate in the waste separation, sorting and recovery of post-consumer discarded materials.

As “potential candidates,”about 1800 families,were identified under the specific conditions and registered. They received information about theProgram and participated of several speeches offered by the Porto Alegre City members in charge. The Program had three main goals:

1. 1. To enhance the traffic movement in the streets of Porto Alegre during the 2014 World Cup, not only to respond to FIFA’s requirements, but also to remove the carts and horse-drawn carriages;

   2. To raise the marginalized individuals’ standard of living, including paper gathering, that often live in their own carts under subhuman conditions, always close to their raw materials: “downtown and its papers”. For this reason, previous attempts to withdraw them from the downtown area were always unfruitful.

   3. To promote these individuals’ social inclusion, training themand hiring them in the public service of waste recycling, with the intention of raising their per capita income. This way, they would be included as common citizens, as government workers with the rights assured by the law, being able to hold documents, health insurance and educational support to their children. They could receive professionalizing studies through scholarships and the participation in events related to citizenship.

Nevertheless, a few months before ending the 4 years of the social program, less than 13% of the 1800 families were affiliated. The program seemed to be excellent as a social initiative, relying on the best conditions to enhance the extreme poverty of this group of citizens. A massive enrolment of these individuals and their families was expected. They still now present the minimal conditions of living, concerning health and education, perpetuating their children’s and their own insertion in marginalized lives.

McGregor (1960) explains Maslow’sTheory of Human Motivation (1954), as structured in five levels:

1. i) The lowest level, but greatly important when not fulfilled, are the physiological needs. The human being only looks for bread then there is no bread. Unless under special circumstances, needs of love, status and recognition are inoperative when the stomach is empty for a while. However, when individuals eat regularly and adequately, hunger is not a significant motivation.The same is true for other human physiological needs as rest, exercise, shelter, and time protection. A satisfied need not necessarily motivates the behavior. This is a fact of deep meaning, often ignored in traditional concepts.

   ii) The needs in the upper level of the pyramid start to dominate the human behavior and to motivate individuals. They are the safety needs: need of protection against danger, threats and privation.

   iii) When the human physiological needs are satisfied and there is no improvement in the physical well-being, then the social needs become a significant motivational factor for the human behavior. This encloses requirements for participation in associations, inclusion and peer acceptance. In this aspect, interpersonal exchanges, friendship and affection become highly considered.

   iv) In the next level, ego needs seem to belong to two different classes: related to self-esteem, self-confidence, accomplishment, competence, knowledge, independence, or needs related to the self-reputation, status, recognition, approval and respect from the group.

   v) Finally, in the hierarchy of human needs there are those known as self-actualization needs. Each individual needs to actualize the own potential, the continuous self-development, a possibility of being creative, in the highest senseof the term, and growth in self-actualization (MASLOW, 1954). Through self-actualization, the human being finds a reason to live (Mc GREGOR, 1960). When the human needs are not fulfilled, a sense of frustration, aggressiveness, nervousness, insomnia, disinterest, passivity, low self-steem, pessimism, resistance to the new, insecurity and others. Other types of self-actualization can reward the negative feelings. (TAY; DIENER, 2011; GAMARINIKOW, 2013)

The theory of goodsis the practical reason to investigate human needs, beginning with the knowledge of such needs as explained in Psychology.While a philosophical theory concentrates upon the objectives that reflect over the nature and its contribution to the human excellence, the psychological theory of needs focuses upon individuals trying to understand how a human being moves and acts towards an objective, and trying to find purposes and direction of certain behaviors (MELÉ, 2009, p. 75-6). Each human need influences the individual’s motivation and actualization, letting him/her go ahead into other needs that follow a hierarchical order (MASLOW, 1954).

According to Macintyre (1998), the theory of needs implies different meanings:

1. a) Internal needs are qualitatively different and not replaceable by another;

   b) There are several domains of social life that are different to individuals, and this includes family, work and politics with distinct meanings;

   c) A good standard of life for individuals usually involves engagement in many or all these domains and practices.

Melé (2009) sees that real goods and needs present themselves to human rationality as objectives to be pursued. Such a rationality has been constant practice among business leaders and consumers, when they plan their actions. Shaw and Colimore (1988) tried to equalize Maslow’s theory of self-actualization with the ideology of capitalism. These authors explain the economic individualism as consistent with the psychological individualism of the Humanist Psychology, while it emphasizes individuals’ needs and desires as extremely important. According to these authors, Maslow’s theory of human motivation implies that the worker is dedicated, perseverant, and the experience tends to raise himself/herself to the top of the pyramid.

Prilleltensky (1994, p.82) explains the importance of individualities and their environmental influences, leading to the conclusion that "there are almost ilimited possibilities of changes in the individual". They can also drive to the conclusion that the change must happen inside the individual. In reality, the problem is in the individual, and not in the society level.

In their Theory of Self-determination (SDT), Deci and Ryan (2000) sustainthat understanding human motivation requires the consideration of the innate psychological needs related to competence, autonomy and kinship. Such a concept of needs relies upon the hypothesis that different regulatory processes are subjacent to the activities that distinguish them. They are differentially associated to the effective functioning and well-being of individuals, mainly due to different regulatory processes and contents associated to different degrees of needs satisfaction (RYAN; FREDERICK, 1997).

Tay and Diener (2011) developed a longitudinal study in 123 countries aiming at understanding the relationship between self-actualization and subjective well-being (SWB). These authors explain how, for years, the idea of unique and universal needs seemed to be overcome, as academicians were accepting the concept that socialization would mould the causes of well-being in each person and in each culture. Persons adapt themselves to the circumstances, so that in the end only the temperament influences the BES (KONNER, 2002; GAMARINIKOW, 2013).

Diener, Ng, Harterand Arora (2010) focused in understanding the role of monetary resources as predictors of the social well-being, mainly of the basic and psychosocial needs. Their survey findings indicated that there really are predictors of the universal need of well-being (SWB). In the study, the income factor did not virtually represent any additional variation, suggesting a close correlation and proximity between basic human needsand the importance of the SWBattributes. There also are different types of SWB associated to psychosocial needs and they are correlated in a different way. Specifically, the social respect seems strongly related to positive feelings, while freedom relates to negative freedom.These approaches are compatible to the idea that respecting others, learning new things, and social relations of support are so much universal fundamental needs that they do not have to be compared to physiological basic needs to influence the SWB.

Ryff and Keyes (1995), and Ryan and Deci (2000), as Maslow (1954) before them, proposed that there are nonphysiological universal human needs. Their actualization is crucial to reinforce a person’s feelings of well-being. These theoreticians suggest that psychological needsexist, and give as examples the deep social relationships, freedom and autonomy, associated to human beings. The actualization of these needs leads to higher SWB. The basic needs strongly relate to appraisals of life and negative feelings. These standards have been replicated in all regions of the world.

The literature presentsseveral studies related to scales of Quality of Life (QL) and its relationship with the human necessities. Constanza et al (1997,2000, 2007) proposed a Model of Human Needs QL,based upon a list of human necessities, to generate a set of indicators, either for quality of life, as for fundamental human needs.Quality of Life (QL) is a multidimensional construct that results from the appraisal of the individual is multiple needs. The needs were mainly a result of an integration of Max-Neef’s studies "Human Needs Matrix" (1991), and Nussbaum and Glover’s "A Study of Human Capabilities"(1995).

Pinzani (2009) argues that the human beings have needs beyond the need of rights. However, the conventional theories do notdispose a language in which these needs can be formulated as requirements of justice or can be so understood. This does not mean that any human requirement can legitimately become object of a justice claim, as this would mean to open a Pandora box. Before this, the idea is to find a theoretical point of view that allows enlarging the spectrum of legitimate justice requirements,beyond the mere legal pretensions. The concept of justice would not be enlarged to a point where it would lose the practical sense.

Moore (2000) verifies that there is no broadly accepted definition of happiness, but there are safe criteria to define suffering, particularly when it deals with a socially avoidable suffering. With such an expression, Moore (2000) indicates a suffering originated not by natural causes, as old age, illness or natural catastrophes, but are a result of human actions. It does not concern so much to immediate interpersonal relationships, but to general social relationships (MOORE, 2000).

By pointing out the social character of suffering, one could assign its responsibility to institutions or persons, in such a way that there might eventually emerge a correspondent duty of reparation (MARGALIT, 1996, DAVIDSON , 2108).The concept of capabilityintroduced by Amartya Sen (1999) and retaken with important changes by Martha Nussbaum, splitted into functioningandcapability. According to Sen (1999), certainfunctionalities have an intrinsic and independent valueas the corporal health, for example. Nussbaum (1990) stresses that, besides being intrinsic, in determined cases such a functioning represents a basis for freely acting: for instance, only one with a certain level of ability to read can lose it or improve it (NUSSBAUM; GLOVER, 1995).

Defining well-being as a possibility to freely chooseamong a broad spectrum of options, Sen (1999) sees the capabilities as possibilities or opportunities of functioning. They are not mere capabilities: saying that one has the capability to freely move himself/herself does not mean, according to Sen (1999), that it refers to its capability to displace, but to the options one concretely has. In this sense, the capabilities have to do not only with abilities, but also with the situations in which one finds himself/herself (as in the case of health)bad with external circumstances (SEN, 1999).

However, Nussbaum (1990) tends to consider capabilities either as traits, personal or of the individual’s character. Traits. On one hand, she distinguishes internal capabilities, or conditions (corporal, mental or of the character) that make an individual able to choose among several functioning’s that he/she considers valuable or, on the other hand, external capabilities related to external social and material conditions that make certain options actually available (Nussbaum, 1990, p.228). In this perspective, the institutional humiliation has to do with the fact that:(1) citizens in a State cannot develop their basic capabilities; and (2) state institutions are directly responsible for such a situation, or could change it, but do nothing. This should be different from the unconditional duties of a State toward its citizens. As an example, a State must offer its citizens a costless public elementary education. Citizens should be led to poorer conditions, or to an analphabetism that does not allow them to alleviate their poverty (NUSSBAUM, 2004, p.282).

Max-Neef’s conceptof freedom (1991) is that of autonomy and determination, assuming equal rights and the capacity of disagreeing, choosing and developing the conscience.

Development is about people and not about objects. This is the basic postulate of Human Scale Development. The acceptance of this postulate—whether on intuitive, ethical or rational grounds—leads to the following fundamental question: How can we determine whether one development process is better than another? In the traditional paradigm, we have indicators such as the gross national product (GNP) that is in a way an indicator of the quantitative growth of objects. Now we need an indicator about the qualitative growth of people… (MAX- NEEF, 1991, p.16)

The different perceptions and understandings are interwoven facets of the human needs issue. What is at stake here is a question of form and of emphasis. The challenge to all of us is to internalize an approach to development based on human needs, which, once understood, will guide our actions and expectations (MAX- NEEF, 1991, p.14-15).

According to Skinner (1971), freedom is a behavioral response to aversive stimulus that may vary between complete evasion and an aggressive attack. The author notes that, in one way or another, the intentional aversive control is the prevailing standard of social coordination. This includes family, government, economy, education and religion. Skinner believes that the environment moulds the individual. The autonomous human being would not exist as a concept: He/she is not free to make choices.

Among other opinions, Rolo May (1981) proposes freedom not only as a state of spirit, but as what distinguishes the human beings. The personal freedom allows individuals to think, feel and speak authentically. The author considers freedom “the mother of all values” (MAY, 1981, p. 6), as it gives the capacity of effectively value other assumptions. It serves as the basis for other human values as love, courage and honesty.

In “Development as Freedom” (1999), the Nobel Awarded economist Amartya Sen compares the concepts of freedom and agency. He understands agency as the capability of an entity (a person or other entity, humanor not) to act in any given environment. The author explains that, although an individual agency is fundamental for the development process, there is an unavoidable constraint caused by social and political agents, and the economic opportunities available in society. Recognizing the importance of both, either the individual freedom or the reality of social influences in the extensionof it, the expansion of individual freedoms means their final role in the development approach. Sen (1999) defines individual freedom as a social commitment in which society assumes the individual responsibility but also share the responsibility of the well-being of others. Social responsibility does not replace individual responsibility. On the contrary, it supports it. Substantive freedoms that the individual has (or not) are contingent, not only in personal, but also in social and environmental circumstances.

The family institution is a relationship of domination based on civil equality of the “individual guarantees” that structure the private initiative.Under certain conditions, it isseen as an associated public relationship related to the production of the social (COIMBRA, 2001). There is a process to produce subjectivities, of right and wrong, that heads for institutionalizing a hegemonic model of family. It is placed in a conflicting position or through discrimination of other types of family relationships, as those constituted by single mothers, by relatives that take over the responsibilities of children, by separated couples, by parents that act illegally or immorally, although all of them are harmonious ways of family organization (COIMBRA, 2001).

According to Donzelot (1985), the social policy related to the poor in Brazil, per se, aims at the previsibility of the future. It is implicit that these families have few chances. They have no conditions to live the standards of the middle class order – as happens with poorest families – that cannot adhere to the established order. From this logic point of view, one deduces the resulting “need” of isolation or elimination of those “differentfrom the social public order”, so that the system as a whole is not contaminated. Those who have in common a determined socioeconomic condition constitutes the main goal of policies:

[...] they are children and teenagers already in marginality or that will turn into it – because they are poor – that should be exterminated. The modernity requiresclean, aseptic cities, where misery – since it cannot be hidden and/or managed – should be eliminated, not for being overcome, but for the extermination of those that expose them, bothering the ‘eyes, ears and noses’ of wealthier classes (COIMBRA, 2001, p. 44).

The derived social categorization materializes in the individuals that develop themselves as independent entities, margin of historical middle class concepts, detached of the collective notion. In the context in which the individual is the key, the collective action also remains characterized in an individual way, as a sum, and not as product of collective agencies. Examples of this are the assistential works or public programs of poverty eradication. They are based in private interests taken to communities to generate demands, without giving room to the own groups to build their requests. Thus, the community concept becomes vague and it cannot be understood (DONZELOT, 1985).

This program aims to promote the social inclusion of these individuals by training and employing public waste garbage recyclers, with the aim of increasing per capita income, including as ordinary citizens, civil servants with rights guaranteed by law, as well as documents, health plans and educational aid to your children. In addition, other vocational courses were also offered (with the granting of a scholarship) and events in favor of citizenship. The program was open and optional (ie adherence to the program was optional but labor rules should be respected and followed.) The program had a strong role (for success, or rather failure) in implementing the Municipal Fund Management Board of Encouraging Recycling and Productive Insertion of Waste Pickers (FMRIC)

Recorded and transcribed, the interviews followed a semistructured script. The questions aimed at “Why people did not adhere to the Porto Alegre para Todos Program?.” The content analysis was used to mainly verify the following aspects:

In the second quantitative phase, due to the heterogeneity of the sample (many respondents were analphabet) and with the respondents limited patience to fill out the questionnaire, the authors opted to use colored cardsapplying the Conjoint Analysis technique. The respondents were asked to classify the cards according to their preference. After this, the data went through statistical analysis using SPSS 20.0.This methodology has been applied by several researchers interested in determining the relative importance of attributes in the process of consumers’ choices. With the conjoint analysis, we seek to establish functions of relative importance or utility, that describe the level of importance that individuals associate to the level of each attribute (HAIR et al., 2005).

The 98 respondents (85 adults males and 12 adults females)chose the described attributes (based in the qualitative phase)in 16cards indicating their three respective levels, based in the insights of qualitative interviews and the literature review. They appeared as follows (Table1):

Table 1
Attributes and Levels for Conjoint Analysis

The authors (2018)

The respondents’ description indicates mostly males (88%), being seven (7) analphabets. Most of them finished – or almost finished – elementary school (Table 2 and Table 3)

Table 2
Description of the Quantitative Sample – Educational Level

The authors (2018)

Table 3
Description of the Quantitative Sample – Age Level

The authors (2018)

The total of responded and classified cards was of 106. However, for the purpose of this project, only 98 were classified and considered valid.As in Table 4, most of the respondents had between 19 and 50 years of age. Table 5 shows information on civil status and number of children in the sample.

4.2.1 Results of the quantitative research (Conjoint Analysis)

Table 4
Results and importance of attributes, utilities and levels of attributes

The authors (2018)

The quantitative results (Table 4)show that the “Activity” attribute (65,24%) had a higher utility or relative importance. The option for authonomous / independentactivity was relevant. Following, the“Income” attribute (22,45%) indicates that the individuals are always looking for resources.

The “Benefits” attribute (13,30%)represents the possibilityof having the respondents’ retirement and scholarship for education, as well as scholarship for their children’s education. This suggests no relevance for the sample.

TheSintax used in the SPSS 20.0to reach the results of the conjoint analysis is as in Figure 1:

Figure 1
Sintax of the conjoint analysis
The authors (2018)

The quality of the responseswas supported using Spearman’s coefficient (for variable metric response) of 0.998 and the Kendall’s Tau correlation coefficient (for variable nonmetric response or ordination) that was 0.883 among the estimated preference values and the respondents’ evaluations (real preference values).When the correlation coefficients are “low”, there might be a respondents’ no commitment with the survey (HAIRet al., 2005). The values of the Spearman and Kendall’sTaucoefficients close to “1” (one) indicate that the cards ordinations reflect the reality and demonstrate well-definedattributes (HAIR et al, 2005).

Paraphrasing Sen (1999) and Nussbaum (1990) point out the social character of suffering, believing that it should be possible to assign the responsibility for itinstitutions or to persons. A correspondent duty of reparation might eventually emerge from this. Amartya Sen (1999) introduced the concept of “capability”, retaking it with Martha Nussbaum’s significant changes (2003). Certain functionalities have an intrinsic and independent value. Nussbaum (2003) emphasize show in determined cases these functionalities, besides intrinsically valuable, represent a basis for freely acting. Sen (1999)suggests an unavoidable constraint caused by the social agents, politicians and economic opportunities available in society. It recognizes the importance of both individual freedom and reality of social influences. We were aligned with Nussbaum’s concepts about intrinsic and independent values society segments, in our example extreme poverty. In addition, we are in accordance with Max-Neef (1991) and Sen’s (1999) views about human needs.

Considering the survey sample categorization as of an extreme poverty, the emphasis the individuals imputed to “freedom” was effectively significant. It is not surprising, to the point as Max Neef’s studies (1991) have given voice to the different needs of poor communities. For Sen (1999), freedom is a fundamental need, the end and the meaning of development, the main objective in a development process. In a way, it directly contrasts with the perspectives that consider the human, civil and political rights as secondary for the development. Individuals also seek for support for their individual freedoms in essential public services of education and health.

Deep understanding and concern about the different perspectives are crucial to elaborate what constitute the objectives and different ways to a primordial point in a humanist articulation of the development of a society (DAVIDSON, 2018; KRZNARIC, 2008). The capacity of a society to care the others is the basis of the human freedoms. The development of an empathy toward less protected and severely limited persons in what relates to their individual freedoms are fundamental requirements for a social transformation.

May (1950, 1981) emphasizes this consideration, explaining that freedom can be the root, the starting point of the main human needs. The assumptions of the Maslow’s Theory find objections among academicians, as they reflect the needs of Western people. They would not take into account the poor countries, oppressed by totalitarian regimes, or native people with different culture and environment, basic aspects for Max-Neef’sfoundings(1991). This author rigorously identifies the importance of cultural and environmental differences in terms of what could defer and become the real fundamental needs of different cultures.

Concerning the creation of a thinking toward the future, Max Neef (1991) properly mentions the risk of committing mistakes in perception or in actions. Interpreting Max-Neef, in the case of Brazil’s extreme poverty, the mistakes or badly succeeded actions for poverty eradication could have happened for misinterpretation of what becomes important for these individuals.

As contribution to the study, we mention the dissonance with the reality, on the side of political actors that created the social program Porto Alegre for All. Clearly, these individuals do not want schedules and norms. They do not like rules, mainly in the job. In their world, it is very important to be free to go and come, to work or not, even though the Western society keeps them apart, as pariahs for the society. These individuals’ apparent depression, if existent, is merely circumstantial and momentary. In their world, they have no interest in finding a job, being legally hired, and retiring.

Max-Neef (1991) explains that in societies of extreme poverty, diversity and autonomy should be preserved in their space, as these individuals will be the protagonists of the future.

The social politics toward the poor in Brazil, per se, indicate destiny previsibility. Few chances for these families are implicit. They have no conditions to live according to the parameters of the middle-class order – as happens with poorest families –that cannot adhere to the instituted order. With this logic, it is possible to notice the resulting “necessity” of isolation or elimination of the “different from the social public order”, so that the system is not totally contaminated (DONZELOT, 1985).

This is not the same as to say that society and governments should not act for the improvement and well-being of these communities, mainly in what relates to children’s health and education. The mother’s presence is the main reference to these children. When they mention family, they mention the mother. The father is never present.Family degradation and diversity of religions in these environments are also notorious, although not necessarily a novelty.

The following recommendations are the authors’ contributions for public agents or private institutions that face these challenges:

1. a) The programs should survive to the extremely poor individuals’ “resistance to changes” should be preferably understood and supported by people relying on their past experiences, and not on institutional basis limited by individuals with different social values. It is clear that normal rules in the “the hierarchy of jobs” do not work well in this social segment. The adherence to programs will hardly occur following rules of the individuals “called normal” in the actual social standards. Individuals should become productive within this reality, the needs and desires of this group.Some types of temporary jobs and diverse ways or raising self-steem suggest they are an effective way of treating the adult male population. The goal is that the individuals have and accumulate positive experiences, as a result from their conduct and attitude.

   b) They are long-term programs, in which the maternal pillar has to be preserved, sustaining the family concept nowadays.Education and health will be oriented toward these women, who really became the children’s reference. The economic-financial and emotional stabilization that the mother provides suggests that the future of the children may effectively change.

   c) The public policies of intervention should concentrate in the nature of this poverty adherents’ resistance. It goes beyond a hermeneutic interpretation, seeking a fusion of the attitude genesis and the experimental process that this attitude provides. Programs fail because their focus was the analysis of the program development process in their several levels, especially the “environmental factor,” and they do not seek for responses in this group’s values and needs. They do not look for an emotional stability and recovering of the self-esteem that may orient this group’s social inclusion. Summing up, the inability of public policies’ builders to recognize the “target” group’s differences, that go beyond their own socially expressed preferences, does neither produce program results or goals nor reach the “target” group’s fundamental needs.