This multi-case study involved coaches who are academics from New Zealand visiting the Philippines on an annual basis and implementing sports coaching programmes underpinned by a humanistic coaching philosophy. The study aimed to gain insight into how sport can be used by the Marist organization in the Philippines to (a) enhance their ability to effectively engage and build relationships within the communities they serve, and (b) to enhance the self-esteem and confidence of pupils in a school set up for children at risk and/or in conflict with the law. A primary objective was for the sports coaching initiative to be self-sustaining and ultimately delivered by graduates from a Marist institute of higher education. For many participants, this experience has been their very first engagement with sport at any level. Individual and focus group interviews revealed that the experience, for many participants and stakeholders, has been ‘transformative’and ‘inspiring’. The notion of sport-for-all challenged traditional thinking about the role of sport as primarily a competitive enterprise. At the school, pupils adopted a more inclusive model of sport and the programme appeared to provide institute graduates with the confidence, skill and desire to engage through sport with young people in their communities.

BACKGROUND

Recent decades have seen a major increase in sport-for-development (SFD) programmes or sport initiatives claiming to provide social, economic and community benefits. 1, 2 SFD is defined as the ‘intentional use of sport, physical activity and play to attain specific development objectives in low-and middle-income countries and disadvantaged communities in high-income settings’. 3 Many initiatives have been justified by the seemingly unquestioned assumption that sports participation results in enhanced wellbeing, psychological, social, and mental health. However, a review of literature conducted by Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) 4 suggested these benefits were attributable more to the personal and social interactions that can occur in sporting environments, as opposed to simply through playing sports. Initiatives that had involved community interaction and had demonstrated cultural awareness, provided robust evidence to suggest that the well-being, health and education of participants can be enhanced through SFD. 5 However, there would also appear to be an abundance of programmes that are largely unregulated and poorly coordinated with little evidence of any rigorous evaluation 3 and any claims made of programme efficacy over-reaching the evidence. 5