Noor Azizah is an award-winning Rohingya human rights advocate, academic, and educator with over a decade of experience working across refugee-led initiatives, community advocacy, and international policy spaces.
Born in Myanmar’s Arakan State, Noor is a survivor of the ongoing Rohingya genocide. As a child, she and her family were forcibly displaced and endured statelessness, homelessness, hunger, and repeated displacement while fleeing military violence. At the age of eight and a half, she resettled in Sydney, Australia. These lived experiences continue to shape her work and her long-term commitment to advancing dignity, justice, and meaningful participation for displaced communities. Noor is the Co-Executive Director of the Rohingya Maìyafuìnor Collaborative Network (RMCN), a Rohingya-led, women-led, and refugee-led organisation working across human rights, sexual and gender-based violence, education, narrative change, and translocal solidarity. Her work places particular emphasis on supporting Rohingya women who have survived genocide, trafficking, and systemic violence, and on ensuring that refugee-led leadership informs decision-making at local, national, and international levels.
Alongside her advocacy, Noor is an academic at the University of Sydney and an English as a Second Dialect specialist educator. She holds a Bachelor of Education (Primary & TESOL) and a Master of Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Sydney. Her academic and teaching work focuses on refugee participation, education in displacement, and the role of lived experience in shaping ethical and effective policy.
Noor’s leadership has been recognised through several national awards, including being named Marie Claire Women of the Year – Voice of Now (2025). She has also served as a refugee delegate and expert in United Nations processes, including at the Global Refugee Forum in Geneva, and is a member of Australia’s inaugural Refugee Advisory Panel. Noor is a regular media contributor, appearing on Al Jazeera, France 24, and SBS News.
Her work is grounded in collaboration, community accountability, and the belief that refugee and multicultural communities must be active partners in shaping the policies that affect their lives.
