A hand-knit woollen sweater, made by the Nobel laureate and Burmese dissident Aung San Suu Kyi in the 1980s when she raising her sons with her husband in the UK, has sold at an auction in Myanmar for $49,000.

The auction was part of a fundraising concert organized by Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party to raise money for education of poor children in Myanmar.

"She made it when she was busy working, studying and taking care of her children," a close aide Ko Ni told AP. "She wants to send the message that people should not stay idle but be diligent."

The bidding for the red, green and blue V-neck sweater created by Myanmar's most revered woman reportedly started at $6,000 and ended up with a Myanmar-based radio station getting hold of Suu Kyi's creation.

"I bought the sweater because I value the warmth and security it will give," chairwoman of Shwe FM radio station Daw Nan Mauk Lao Sai, told AP, adding that she plans to hang it up in the station's office for the whole staff to see. 

Oxford graduate Suu Kyi was raising two young sons with her British husband in the UK. In 1988 she returned to Burma to take care of her dying mother. A year later she was placed under house arrest as a daughter of the country's independence hero, murdered when she was 2 years old. 

Suu Kyi became one of the world's most famous political prisoners who had spent most of the past two decades under house arrest in Rangoon, separated from her husband and children in the UK

In her native country the 67-year-old activist is often referred to as "Amay Suu” or “Mother Suu” as she sacrificed her family to her country when she chose not to leave Myanmar in fear she would not be allowed to re-enter. She didn't see her younger son Kim for 12 years. In 1997 her husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer and died two years later.

The Burmese dissident was reunited with her sons after she was released from house arrest in 2010.

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