Lifelong human rights advocate Regan Ralph joins Front Line USA Foundation
Founding board members Joan Carrol and Vincent McGee depart
Front Line Defenders is pleased to welcome its newest Front Line USA Foundation Board member, the lifelong human rights advocate Regan Ralph. Based in the Washington, DC area, Regan took up the role on May 3.
“As a strong advocate for justice and human rights throughout her career, Regan Ralph is a very welcome addition to the Board of Front Line USA Foundation,” said Olive Moore, Interim Director of Front Line Defenders.
“Since early on, Regan embraced the power of human rights to challenge structural inequality and has worked alongside and in support of human rights movements ever since. We look forward to relying on her decades of expertise and wise counsel. -- Olive Moore, Interim Director of Front Line Defenders”
Regan served as the founding president and CEO of the Fund for Global Human Rights from 2002-2022. Prior to launching the Fund, she was Vice President for Health and Reproductive Rights at the National Women’s Law Center in Washington DC, where she led advocacy, policy and educational strategies to promote the quality and availability of health care for women in the US.
From 1992-2001, Regan helped to build and direct the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, where she developed campaigns to ensure the prosecution of sexual violence in conflict as a war crime, to secure recognition of gender-based persecution as grounds for asylum, and to promote women’s rights in countries including Russia, Egypt, Turkey, South Africa, Pakistan and Mexico.
Regan is a graduate of Harvard University and Yale Law School and studied international law at the London School of Economics and Arabic at the American University in Cairo. She serves on the boards of EG Justice, Crisis Action, and the Center for International Policy.
“I am excited to join Front Line USA and support its efforts to extend protections to the brave human rights defenders who have never been more at risk" -- Regan Ralph.
Founding board members depart
Front Line Defenders also expressed its deep gratitude to founding board members Joan Carrol and Vincent McGee as they stepped down at the end of their terms.
Joan Carrol, a former director in the Personal Finance Services Group of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, was instrumental in establishing Front Line Defenders U.S. entity, now know as Front Line USA Foundation, in 2015 and served as the Treasurer for eight years.
Vincent McGee, the founding chair of Front Line Foundation USA, is a longstanding foundation executive and donor advisor, and an active advocate for human rights, non-violence, and access to health care.
“Joan and Vincent conscientiously steered the organization in its first years and left a legacy of a strong board of esteemed human rights leaders committed to the work of protection human rights defenders at risk. We thank them for their years of dedicated service," said Olive Moore.
Front Line Defenders is an international human rights organization founded in Dublin, Ireland in 2001, with the specific aim of protecting human rights defenders at risk (HRDs). Over the last two decades, the organization has expanded significantly in size and scope and was the proud recipient of the 2018 UN Prize for Human Rights. It currently supports and protects hundreds of at-risk human rights defenders around the globe.
Set up in September 2015, Front Line USA Foundation is a public charity with 501(c)(3) status in the United States, which supports Front Line Defenders through US advocacy and development.
