In October 2011, prize winners Boris Bulayev and Eric W. Glustrom visited Grinnell College to receive their 2011 Young Innovator for Social Justice Prize awards and share their experience with the Grinnell community and the other prize winners.
Transcript
>> MELISA CHAN:
Educate! is the first organization in the world to incorporate its social entrepreneurship curriculum into a national education system, specifically the national education system of Uganda.
>> BORIS BULAYEV:
I want to encourage all you guys to find your purpose and the way you can leverage your own opportunity to help others who haven't been as lucky. For me that means doing Educate!, for you it will probably be something else. But whatever it is, just make sure to find your purpose and take advantage of your opportunity.
>> ERIC W. GLUSTROM:
Because of the potential I saw within Benson, and because of this concept that education could unlock that potential, I really had to do something about that. And not doing something about that would be an injustice in and of itself. So for me that was my moment of obligation.
The moment of obligation is like the seed; and it's where everything begins from, but then you just have to piece everything else together from there. And, you know, the moment of obligation is definitely not enough. It is not always pretty after that moment happens.
But for me, what really keeps me going is, whenever I'm going through a challenging time, I think of some of the other social change, some of the other social justice leaders who've been through such incredibly difficult times, both in their own lives and their works, that my challenges seem just eating cake, basically. And that really, really helps. And I think that I'm fortunate to be in this position.
>> BORIS BULAYEV:
I think that it's a privilege to be able to do the work, and to have work that 1) just grows me personally, grows me to be able to achieve more of what I want to achieve in life, but 2) is something that gives and enriches my life in such a meaningful way. Obviously the impact on the ground is incredible and it's amazing to be a small part of it, and be a small part of the energy that we have in Uganda. But it's also really wonderful to be building a community of people around that. I love being here because I love interacting with a community of people that are interested in the stuff, and that's really fulfilling for me.
