Noah first came to El Salvador as a human rights intern for Cristosal in 2005 after graduating from the University of Montana in Peace and Conflict Studies. That first year evolved into a more than a decade of crafting human rights-based programs to address problems from hurricane disaster relief to community development.
In 2007, Noah became the Community Development Program Director. Three years later, he became Cristosal’s first in-country Executive Director, while also earning a post-graduate certificate in Local Development from the University of Central America José Simeón Cañas (UCA).
Noah sees at the heart of Cristosal’s mission the challenge to redefine human rights mechanisms and state responses to address today’s human rights violations. “Human rights were taught to me as a historical process, and every generation has to be able to understand human rights and violations in their own time. Our moment has changed significantly from when these frameworks were established, so we are challenged now to find ways to apply these same principles in programming to address our moment’s greatest challenges of displacement by violence, poverty, and inequality.”