Noor Azizah

Noor Azizah is a 27 year old former Rohingya refugee. She resettled with her family in Sydney in 2003 at the age of 8, having fled the genocide of Rohingya people in the Rakhine state of Myanmar. She experienced homelessness, statelessness and a sense of hopelessness in her early life. While other children went to school or played with friends, she and her family made their way through the thick jungles, avoiding death at every turn, sleeping on roads and scavenging for food.

Walking from country to country, they found a resting place in Malaysia, a place they thought everything would be OK. Instead, the nights were witness to the calls of their empty stomachs, days would go by where Noor and her siblings would go without eating. Azizah holds herself responsible for the voices of Rohingya women who have face the unimaginable atrocities of systematic rape, torture and the murder of family and friends.

This feeling remains at the forefront of her mind. Azizah channels this ever-present sense of duty into all her work. Azizah has a Bachelor of Education (Primary & TESOL specialisation) and Master of Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Sydney. Azizah was named one of YAIA's 2022 Young Women to Watch in International Affairs. She was selected as an Australian delegate for the Young Pacific Leaders Conference 2023. Azizah is a refugee delegate at the United Nations in Geneva where she also spoke at The Global Refugee Forum (2019) as a keynote speaker advocating for Rohingya women.

Azizah is part of the Gender Audit Team (UNSW & UNHCR), Member of the ATCR Refugee Steering Group (Annual Tripartite Consultation on Resettlement UNHCR), Young Migrant and Refugee Women's advisory board (Harmony Alliance), U.S. Consulate General's Sydney Youth Advisory Council and International Rohingya women's network (Fortify Rights). She is extremely passionate about the right's of children and women to receive education. Azizah is currently working as a English as a Second Dialect Specialist teacher in Sydney and a Rohingya refugee consultant on various boards, including Asia Justice & Rights and those mentioned above. She loves languages, travelling, culture and going on waterfall adventures.