About
Our Mission & Purpose
Brilliance Inside works towards the healing of our society’s cycle of violence. We first transforms prison from being strictly a container of violence to a creator of healing and peace, empowering residents to be agents of positive change in their community. We believe that sustainable positive human change starts by connecting to the brilliance we each have inside, building the resilience and emotional intelligence tools to shine that brilliance independent of outside circumstances, and, as we do so, shifting the culture of our homes and communities.
Our Vision
Recognizing that hurt people hurt people, the US prison system provides (1) a safe community by separating those who do harm until they have found healing and rehabilitation and (2) a safe rehabilitative space for the prison residents to heal the pains that led to their criminal activity. Prison residents reintegrate society with the tools to contribute to society with respect, integrity, contribution and connection.
History
Brilliance Inside started with two seemingly impossible things… a calling that wouldn’t go away, and a group hug among a group of inmates. Mariette first heard to ‘go to prison’ in 2015. When it wouldn’t go away, Mariette googled “prisons in San Diego” and, five months later, she stepped into San Diego’s Donovan State Prison for the first time. The force that pulled her to visit an extremely violent, highly regimented, downright frightening place also showed her the richness in humanity of the prison residents. That first week, she visited 3 times, a pace that she has continued to this day.
Mariette was surprised by the richness in humanity that she witnessed at Donovan, and, wanting others to experience this unexpected beauty, she created the first TEDxDonovanCorrectional. The event, ideated and orchestrated by a Core Team of 8 residents and supported by Mariette and a dedicated team of volunteers, took place in May 2017.
The event was a wild success, and instigated that second impossible thing-- the group hug. The event brought together 100 prison residents and 100 outside attendees, and at the end of an emotion-filled day, the Core Team of residents fell into a spontaneous, counterculture, interracial, radical group hug! This simple, yet profound, gesture convinced Mariette that there was more dignity, respect and love to bring to this degrading and dehumanizing environment. So, six months later, she created Brilliance Inside, with the mission of healing society’s cycle of violence, by first transforming prison from a container of violence to a creator of peace.
About Mariette
Mariette Fourmeaux du Sartel creates a world in which every single one of us feels safe to uncompromisingly become and express our brilliance. When in our brilliance, we metamorphose our potentiality into the solutions to the world’s greatest challenges.
Mariette is a true global citizen: born in France, she’s lived on four continents and has explored some of the most remote corners of our world. In those remote corners, she has experienced connection, stories, laughter, music. She has sat under a starry sky in the desert of Morocco with tribal nomads and learned to embrace cultural discovery; she has witnessed the kindness and compassion of street kids in the slums of India. From Morocco to Mongolia, from India to Ethiopia, she has seen that what separates us from others is not as vast as the common human dignity that we all share; a belief that forms the foundation of what Mariette knows to be true:
That we can change our perceptions of others, and when we do, we begin to understand, and this understanding leads to progress.
That dignity, respect and love create harmony, transformation, and peace.
That safety, creativity and productivity do not thrive in a world of borders and walls, but in overcoming what separates us, allowing people in, and recognizing the brilliance inside all of us.
In spaces where creativity and innovation are allowed to thrive, you can solve large scale world problems.
In every relationship, in every situation, there is common ground, and you can find yourself on the same side of the table, even if you don’t start out that way. When you trust that there is a common ground, you can overcome conflict and discover creative solutions.
Mariette has transferred her passion for building sustainable, resilient high-performing teams and authentic human-centered leadership – honed through two decades in corporate and start-ups – into the unlikely environment that is prison. She founded Brilliance Inside, a nonprofit program to transform prison from being strictly a container of violence to a creator of rehabilitation and peace. Mariette’s formal education was forged through a Brown University engineering and economics degree and a Berkeley MBA.