From the camps, a plea by Awer Mabil for the children

Awer Mabil knows the challenges of swapping a refugee camp for bewilderingly rich Australia as a child. He says they must not be demonised.

Awer Mabil at the ­Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya. Picture: Njeri Mwangi.

It is late afternoon in the vast ­Kakuma refugee camp and Awer Mabil has bought four soccer balls; two small, two full-size.

Somali elders are crouched in tin sheds, furious with Donald Trump, arguing the US President has blocked their dreams of freedom from poverty in Kenya.

Mabil, 22, who is one of Australia’s great soccer and assimilation success stories, doesn’t buy into the roadside bitterness, plotting instead to give away his street stall purchases to children so poor they make their own balls out of rags, condoms and ­adhesive tape.

In 2006, Mabil settled in Adelaide with his mother and siblings, rapidly becoming a sought-after soccer talent. His career has led him to Europe and contention for Socceroos selection.

From Europe, he has looked on as his fellow South Sudanese have faced the same, daunting challenges after leaving the 180,000-strong camp for bewilderingly rich Australian life.

Mabil’s message is that the young South Sudanese in Australia must not be demonised and that the entire community should rally behind the children to give them the opportunities to play and excel at sport and education.

“The situation in Melbourne is interesting. I keep a close eye on that,’’ he says during a recent trip to Kenya to deliver supplies for his charity Barefoot to Boots.

“These kids need help. It’s not that they are bad people. These kids need someone to guide them. Tell them, if you have a focus and want to be a doctor, a football player, a basketball player, there are many things. You want to be a runner, African people love to run. There is amazing talent. They just need someone to guide them.’’

Sydney Swans star Aliir Aliir came out of the same camp, which is alive with athletic prowess, providing five members of the Refugee Olympic Team in Rio.

Mabil and his brother Awer Bul, 35, have teamed with Adelaide businessman Ian Smith in a start-up charity that has the world game of soccer at its core, but has expanded into health and education.

Bul shares his ­brother’s desire for the Australian community to unite around his people. For Mabil, there is a formula that can be followed; it ­involves parents working assiduously to occupy their children, whether it is in education or sport.

“It can be fixed easily,’’ he said. “Parents need to take kids to training. If they don’t, in two or three years they will lose motivation and they will fall back.

“We like to be in groups, that’s just our social thing, but it’s different in Australia. There are different people in groups, you have people who are negative and positive, and that becomes the environment and the environment can change you. If so, you are not going to running practice.’’

In Kakuma, 750km northwest of Nairobi and bordering South Sudan and Ethiopia, there is a sense of community that defies the stereotype of refugee life.

For Mabil and many others who leave the camps the impact can be profound, adjusting from free-range living to Western constraints and city life.

“It made us who we are,’’ Mabil says of Kakuma. “I would not change that for anything. I had no worries, I had no labels. I didn’t think I was a refugee. It was just a label that was put on me when I went elsewhere.’’