Program encourages single Airmen to get involved

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman William A. O'Brien
  • 39th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
INCIRLIK AIR BASE, Turkey --  The 39th Force Support Squadron has recently implemented the Single Airman Initiative Program to provide single and unaccompanied Airmen here with an opportunity to take part in trips and activities for free.

The program was initiated based on feedback received from the 2011 Caring For People forum. The forum provides an opportunity for any base member to communicate what they think can be enhanced on the base. SAI was funded by Air Force leadership based on requests from Airmen and Incirlik's single Airmen population.

With this funding, the community services flight hosted an additional forum to see what specific programs and activities Airmen want.

"We sat down with the command chief, a couple of the first sergeants and about 20 Airmen that fit the program's target demographic, and we talked to them about what their interests were," said Mark Sullivan, 39th FSS Community Services Flight chief.

Several ideas brought up during the forum included trips in which Airmen were interested, as well as education and life skills programs.

"There was a strong interest in people doing cultural things and history. It spanned everything in the way of life skills classes from how to invest, how to buy a car, how to buy a home," added Sullivan. "A couple of people were also interested in education and had heard about a CLEPathon and were interested in doing something like that."

A number of SAI events have already been successful. Over the holiday season, Sullivan arranged a Cappadocia and Mount Aires trip for Airmen to ski, learn about the local culture and explore the sites.

"What we did was over the Christmas holiday, we took 19 folks up to Mount Erciyes for skiing on Christmas Eve during the day time and took them to Cappadocia where they had dinner, went out for a Turkish cultural night and spent the night," said Sullivan. "The next morning they got up and it was neat because they woke up to a white Christmas and then we took them out ATV riding in the snow.

Another SAI includes requesting funding to expand the wireless internet services around base and exploring the possibility of adding the capability to outdoor recreation's bus fleet.

In the future, the SAI will offer trips to the local area, as well as a series of life skills sessions called "Food & Finance" where Airmen will simultaneously learn culinary and financial skills

"Airmen were interested in learning how to cook, so we thought it would be fun to put something together about how to cook and put it together with the financial session," said Sullivan. "With that, what we've done is develop a program outline that runs in three parts."

Also a part of the SAI, the community center received $600 to improve the availability of musical instruments to be rented for home use.

This program, intended to reach the various interests of Airmen across the base, enables single Airmen to pursue their interests.

"It can be difficult to reach younger age group," said Sullivan. "Programs targeted towards 18-25 age group are not always successful; but with this, if they say it would be fun to do this, we can put it together."

Sullivan also found that many single Airmen didn't know about the program's previous activities. To spread the word, FSS added SAI information to the unit's website so the information would be more easily accessible to those who primarily rely on electronic media.