Motivations, barriers, and the need to engage with community leaders: Challenges of establishing a sport for development project in Baucau, East Timor

The Future in Youth (FIY) soccer project is a sport for development (SFD) program in Baucau, Timor-Leste. Few employment opportunities exist in Baucau, and many of the youth are members of martial arts gangs, contributing to conflict among communities. The aims of FIY are to: a) engage the youth in positive sporting activity and b) enhance the capacities of participating coaches. FIY runs for one month annually, with a view to becoming more frequent as the coaches' capacities are developed. In this study, we investigated the motivations of local Timorese coaches to participate in FIY. Five male coaches, aged 19-27 years, who contributed to FIY in both 2010 and 2011, participated in a semistructured focus group. Several coaches also attended additional interviews to generate data. The central theme arising from the coaches' data was that they were primarily motivated to coach to benefit the children from their bairos (subvillages). Although the coaches reported enhanced coaching competence, many barriers restricted these coaches from seeking opportunities to engage their teams in competitive football, including limited transport, finance, parental permission, and fear of violence. Consistent with contemporary SFD literature, we recommended that FIY engage with community leaders to find locally driven solutions to these difficulties.