STEVE DENT is spearheading a sporting renaissance on a tiny island nation -- in an almost forgotten part of the world.

Steve, who was born and brought up in Keighley, is leading an ambitious sports development programme on the Falkland Islands, where he has made his home.

After leaving Yorkshire he travelled with his parents to Australia, and after training as a teacher decided to take up an adventurous new job.

He arrived in the Falkland Islands in 1998 to work as a travelling teacher and quickly settled into island life.

He has married an islander, Janice, and has two children, Dean (7), and Lauren (4). He has become an integral part of the Falkland sporting scene.

Steve worked as a PE teacher at the Falkland Islands Community School, the infant school - and junior school.

He took up his latest post as Recreation Manager at the Leisure Centre in Stanley, the capital of the islands, in September and is determined to put the Falkland on the world's sporting map.

The task is a monumental one because of the size of the islands, their tiny population and their distance from the rest of the world.

The islands are in fact two large islands - East and West Falkland - together with a total of 778 smaller islands, covering an area over half the size of Wales. They are in the South Atlantic about 300 miles from the nearest point on the South American mainland.

They were almost unheard of until Argentina laid claim to the islands sparking the 'Falkland War' in 1982 and since then they have become one of the most modern Overseas Territories of the United Kingdom.

At the start of that conflict the population was just 1,800 and since then it has grown to nearly 2,500 -- less than many villages in the Keighley area.

With such a small population everybody has to pull together and Steve wears a string of sporting hats.

He is vice-chairman of the island's Overseas Games Association, secretary of the Stanley Sports Association, a member of the Stanley Regatta organising committee, a Duke of Edinburgh's Award leader, on the committee of the Stanley Raft Race and an organiser of the Falkland Gun Club League.

Personal sporting interests include sailing, sea kayaking, Clay shooting, hill walking and climbing.

He hopes to represent the islands in the 2006 Commonwealth Games which are to be held in Melbourne, Australia, next November.

Before then he is leading a group of young islanders to the Commonwealth Youth Games in Bendigo, Australia, a town about two hours by car north-west of Melbourne.

Steve also hopes to make the Falkland team for the Island Games, which are to be held in Shetland in July next year.

He is currently setting up the first Stanley Yacht Club and helped organise the island's first sailing regatta earlier this year and interest in the sport was given a boost when Round-the-World yachtswoman Helen MacArthur stopped off at the islands.