MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, Ala. -- The Air Force Culture and Language Center recently released an “Introduction to the Philippines” course on its free Culture Guide mobile app – one of 10 Department of the Air Force-certified courses available via the app and the myLearning platform.
These courses lay the groundwork for Airmen to follow through on efforts to integrate with allies and partners by providing the essential cultural and regional cues needed to engage the global landscape through collaboration, competition, and culture.
The “Introduction to the Philippines” course provides an in-depth look into the culture and customs of the Filipino people, equipping service members with the cross-cultural skills and knowledge needed to efficiently facilitate bilateral engagements with the U.S.’s oldest regional ally in the Indo-Pacific.
“The release of this course reinforces our commitment to posture our Airmen to be ‘integrated-by-design’ with allies and partners across the global landscape,” AFCLC Director Howard Ward said. “Working seamlessly with our partners in the Philippines and other countries within the Indo-Pacific region is a critical component to enabling Agile Combat Employment and deterring aggression from our adversaries.”
This course also provides members of the Language Enabled Airman Program with additional cultural knowledge as they prepare to engage with Filipino counterparts in activities aligned under the Mutual Defense Treaty, such as humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, and territorial integrity, during Language Intensive Training Events in the Philippines.
“As we start to routinely send more LEAP Scholars to the Philippines for hands-on strategic training, this course will help to supplement and refresh the Scholars’ knowledge of the culture and region before they go, thus setting them up for successful collaboration with our Filipino partners,” said Lt. Col. Charlynne McGinnis, chief of LEAP and Tagalog LEAP Scholar.
In addition to the Philippines course, AFCLC hosts courses in Developing Cross-Cultural Competence, Developing Resilience to Misinformation/Disinformation, and introductory courses to Afghanistan, China, Russia, Iraq, Japan, South Korea, and Iran. The DCC course counts as credit toward the overall Cross-Cultural Communication Ready Training Area requirements of the Ready Airman Training Air Force Force Generation, or AFFORGEN, cycle. The culture-specific courses on the Philippines, China, Russia, and other countries are provided as additional resources within that RTA.
The app also hosts a video library of more than 100 videos frequently updated with educational content on various geopolitical topics and a database of Expeditionary Culture Field Guides for more than 80 countries.
Nearly 40,000 service members across all branches and civilians utilize the Culture Guide mobile app to increase cultural competence. The app is available in the App Store and Google Play and cleared for use on Department of Defense devices.