Biography

Htoi Awng Maran is vice editor-in-chief and a co-founder of Kachinwaves, a Burmese-language news outlet based in Kachin state, Myanmar. He has built Kachinwaves to serve a mission “to build a free and just society by strengthening robust democratic institutions and good practices in Myanmar.”

Maran has spent the past nine years giving media awareness training to communities. From 2013 to 2016 he was a journalist for 7 Days News, one of the top media organizations in Myanmar.

He has reported on human rights violations and the lack of transparency within the military coup, the plight of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP), and corruption. He has also reported environmental issues associated with rare earth mining, gold mining, and Chinese megaprojects in Kachin state.

Maran is proud of his job which has raised the people’s voices from inside Myanmar. He earned a Bachelor's degree in Russian from the University of Foreign Languages Mandalay. He attended a three-month media training after his graduation, which encouraged him to pursue a journalism.