Building Bridges From Norway
Coming Soon…
"So many peoples in Myanmar who are fighting for democracy and and human rights... they don’t get any title or any recognize, but they did what they believed in."
Wut Hmone Win speaks from a place of inheritance and defiance—a legacy of political struggle that shaped her life and an unrelenting determination to continue it. Her father, a student leader of the 1974 uprising, was imprisoned for his defiance of Ne Win’s military regime, and her family lived under constant surveillance. “The whole life of me and my family is [being] watched by the military,” she says. This generational weight shaped her understanding of both fear and resistance. From a young age, she learned that freedom always exacted a price.
Educated at Yangon University of Economics and later at BI Norwegian Business School, she initially sought to build a life of stability and distance from politics. Yet the coup of February 2021 shattered that separation. “I am living in Norway. I feel democracy and freedom and safety here, and human rights,” she says, describing the moment she realized how deeply those same values had been stolen from her country. The grief was immediate and overwhelming—“crying uncontrollably,” she recalls—but it became the beginning of her reawakening.
Within days, she had abandoned her business and begun organizing demonstrations against the junta. She helped found what would become the CRPH Support Group, Norway, a coalition of over 21 ethnic and religious organizations working to sustain Myanmar’s revolution from exile. The group was formally registered in November 2021, headquartered in Blaker, and became a crucial hub for the diaspora’s humanitarian and political resistance. Under her leadership, it serves two missions: to provide humanitarian relief for displaced and persecuted people inside Myanmar, and to advocate internationally for the recognition of the National Unity Government (NUG) and the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) as the country’s legitimate authorities.
Wut Hmone Win's leadership combines moral conviction with organizational precision. “I do need money to support people who are suffering in Myanmar,” she says. “That’s my simple strategy… we do need to support human rights, and we do need to support people who are suffering.” She uses her background in economics and management to make accountability a cornerstone of her work—every donation tracked, every report transparent. Still, no matter how hard she may work to achieve results, she is often left with lingering questions, given how much need inevitably remains. “Sometimes I was depressed. I will do so much, but is that effective or not?”
Under her direction, the CRPH Support Group Norway has led nationwide protests, including outside the Norwegian parliament, calling attention to the coup’s anniversary and demanding accountability for corporate complicity. “Our [Burmese] culture and our mindset [before the coup] is really living in fear, but now that is really different,” she comments, noting the heightened degree of activism now seen across many diaspora groups. Wut Hmone Win in particular was central to the campaign opposing Telenor’s sale of its Myanmar operations to a junta-linked firm, arguing that such actions endangered users’ data and lives. The group has also signed joint statements with international bodies such as CIVICUS and FORUM-ASIA, coordinated advocacy with support groups in Australia, Germany, and India, and even facilitated video conferences between the CRPH and Norwegian Members of Parliament to press for formal recognition and humanitarian aid.
Still, her criticism of Norway’s political stance remains unwavering. Wut Hmone Win accuses the government of aiding the junta indirectly through its cautious neutrality and UN-dependent aid structure. For example, she notes that 47% percent of Norwegian aid goes through UN agencies that work with the junta, while only one percent reaches local actors. “We are standing here like a diaspora group in Norway," she says. "We do need support, and we do need [recognition] too.” With this in mind, she has demanded that Norway and the EU stop legitimizing military intermediaries and instead channel support directly to the people’s representatives.
Wut Hmone Win is candid about the limits of insular outreach, often describing how too many diaspora groups remain confined to their own circles. She explains that most Burmese abroad “are [remaining] in their own group, and that is a limited amount.” To her, the struggle’s success depends on breaking that boundary and creating awareness among people who might otherwise never hear of Myanmar. She observes that in Norway, a country of six million, “maybe 20%” know about Myanmar—“80% they didn’t know… they have money, they want to help, but they don’t know well.” Her solution is not complaint but motion. She insists that they “need to apprise about Myanmar” and “shout out loudly and effectively.” That conviction leads her to leave the comfort of familiar networks, traveling throughout the country to hold events that mix art, performance, and testimony— that “show our culture, dancing and then what happened in Myanmar.” In her view, this outward movement—beyond the safe, known spaces of diaspora—is how the revolution’s voice can be truly heard.
In the end, Wut Hmone Win does not see her role as leadership— rather, she feels it is a type of obligation. And this returns her thoughts to where she started, reflecting on how her father, were he still alive today, might look at the post-coup workload she's taken on. “I always feel that [my father] will be really proud for me," she says simply.