Wai Wai Nu is Director and founder of Women Peace Network. In 2012, after seven years as a political prisoner, she was released under a presidential amnesty. Since being freed she has dedicated herself to promoting human rights and democracy in Myanmar. Nu was deeply moved by the escalated violence she encountered upon her release from prison. As a result, she formed the Women’s Peace Network, Arakan, as a platform to build peace and mutual understanding between Myanmar’s different ethnicities, and to advocate for the rights of marginalized women in Arakan. Through the Women’s Peace Network she has campaigned in Myanmar and around the world for women’s rights, an end to impunity, and an end to the persecution of her people, the Rohingya. Nu has conducted women’s empowerment trainings, offered legal education seminars, and organized human rights and peace building activities. She has completed her law degree and founded Justice for Women, which operates as a network of female lawyers providing legal consultation and education for the women of Myanmar in 2014. She initiated and organised My Friend Campaign with youth from different community to promote tolerance and to reduce discrimination and hatred among diverse groups in 2015.
She was awarded N-Peace award (as peace generation) and selected as a "100 Top Woman" by the BBC in 2014. She was awarded “Democracy Courage Tributes 2015” by World Movement for Democracy in November 2015. She was also recognized as one of the 100 inspiring women by Salt Magazine and one of the 100 World Thinker 2015 by Foreign Policy Magazine respectively.