Young Socceroo star Awer Mabil, who fled civil war in Sudan to become one of Australia’s top footballers, has been named Young Australian of the Year 2023 for his work advocating for refugees.

Awer was born a South Sudanese refugee in 1995 in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya. At the age of 10 he and his family moved to Australia as refugees and settled in Adelaide.

He says he first began playing soccer in the refugee camp at around the age of five.

“We would just go outside and start kicking a ball around. It was not structured and there was little else to do,” he said in an interview.

“We played in bare feet and used a rolled-up sock as a football,” Awer said.

He is the co-founder of the humanitarian charity Barefoot to Boots (BTB), which aims to improve health, education, and gender equality among refugees, as well as equipping young refugees with sports equipment

BTB was conceived of by Awer and his brother Awer Bul, following a return visit with 20 football shirts to Kakuma Refugee Camp in northern Kenya in June 2014.

Soon after the brothers’ 2014 trip to Kakuma, Awer approached businessman Ian Smith, who is the husband of former politician Natasha Stott-Despoja, at an Adelaide United training camp in Alice Springs.

Awer spoke of his dreams of creating a sustainable and ongoing project, based around football, to help refugees.

Together, the brothers and Ian established ‘Barefoot to Boots’; symbolising the long walk of many refugees, their basic needs and the importance of football in the foundation’s objectives.

BTB was officially launched in April 2015 by Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop and received the full support of the Australian Government, particularly through the generosity of the High Commission in Nairobi.

The organisation has donated more than 2000 kilos of football boots and uniforms, and it is now common to see teams wearing the shirts of Australian football teams playing each other in the Kakuma Premier League or the women’s Divas League.

But given there are more than 400 teams of all ages, there is an unrelenting demand for equipment. BTB returns to Kakuma at least once a year, and has visited camps in Uganda, Turkey and Lebanon.

As well as its humanitarian efforts, BTB has a mission to influence refugee policy at the highest levels of governments, and to support countries receiving displaced people and NGOs providing on-the-ground assistance.

Currently, war, violence and climate change have displaced more men, women and children around the world than at any time in history with almost 90 million forced from their homes.

BTB prides itself on being advised by refugees in camps with lived experience, through meaningful and trusted discussions during visits and through regular engagement throughout the year on social media. And it is assisted and advised by NGOs that operate within camps.

A citizen of South Sudan by birth, Awer was cleared by FIFA to play for Australia in March 2014 after a year-long process to obtain a birth certificate and gain exemption from FIFA eligibility rules due to his refugee status.

In October 2018, Awer made his debut for Australia in a match against Kuwait.

He played in qualifying matches for the 2022 World Cup. In the final “must-win” game against Peru, he scored one of the penalties that secured a place in the competition for the Socceroos. He said that scoring the crucial goal was “the only way to say thank you to Australia on behalf of my family”.

Australian of the Year nominees included refugee rights activist Craig Foster AM, and refugee John Kamara, co-founder of the Culturally Diverse Alliance of Tasmania and the African Communities Council of Tasmania.

Judge Rauf Soulio, AM, the son of an Albanian refugee, was recognised for his achievements as current chair of the Australian Migrant Resource Centre and decades of work helping migrants and refugees settle into life in Australia.