"Those kids are kids like mine."

My son shouldn’t be alive, let alone playing soccer each Saturday.

From the time of our first ultra-sound scan to the day of delivery, my wife Rachel and I were told our baby wouldn’t survive. We were told his lungs and kidneys were malformed and incapable of sustaining life, that his spinal cord was missing vertebrae and disfigured, that, at the most, we’d get to hold him for a few moments while he expired soon after birth.

When Harrison arrived, miraculously and with the assistance of some incredible medical staff, his lungs were soon functioning without support and the strange kidney tissue that had developed was providing him with around 15% of the kidney function of the average human. Harrison lived, although most days for the first three weeks we were told it would be his last day, and when finally sent home it was because, “you might as well spend the few weeks he has left together at home.”

Harrison is now 7 and plays soccer for his school team on the weekends. His challenges aren’t over – he lives with a non-functioning urinary system, a colostomy bag, extremely under-developed pelvic floor and abdominal muscles and planning for his first kidney transplant is well under way. If you met him, you’d have no idea he faces any of these daily obstacles – he’s a pocket rocket who embraces each day like he is going to squeeze every last bit of life out of it.

Watching him play soccer each Sunday, his challenges become more apparent. He’s the first to tire, the last to reach the ball, the least agile and the most averse to physical contact. He’s protecting his internal organs, vulnerable without the muscle covering that other kids have, and he’s worried what’ll happen to his colostomy bag if he takes a big hit; his low kidney function decimates his stamina and his awkward gait impedes his ability to run with any speed.

And yet, he wouldn’t miss a game. And I wouldn’t want him to. Rachel and I see every day as a gift, a day we didn’t think we’d get to share with our son. To see him put on his soccer boots and jersey and run out with the team; to watch him cheer a goal or get a pat on the back from a friend when he makes a good pass… these are experiences we never thought we’d have the privilege of witnessing.

There are moments when my experience helps me catch just a small portion of what it’s like for my friends who have come to Australia as refugees when they see their kids doing well at school, join a soccer team or swim at the beach – the thrill of being in a moment that only in our dreams we hoped was possible.

I had one of these moments recently. School holidays meant that Harrison’s soccer team had a break and so, donning his boots, went to join in on giving out the first soccer boots to asylum seeker children through Welcome to Australia’s “Asylum Sneakers” campaign.

I saw 5 year-old Yalda receive not only the first soccer boots she’d ever owned, but wear new shoes, of any kind, for the first time in her life. I saw Younus’ father help him tie up his laces on his new boots, over the socks that went with the uniform his school had supplied, and leave to join his team wearing his very own pair of boots. I met Andre, a Burundian refugee with six children, and heard him explain how something as small as soccer boots brought joy to his home and excitement to his sons and daughters. I heard him share that he would “never be able to afford boots like these, especially for six children,” and explain that, “settling in Australia is easy when you are surrounded with people who welcome you like this.”

And then I watched as Harrison and a dozen kids with stories and experiences I can’t comprehend or imagine, wearing their new boots and sporting smiles from ear to ear, started their own game of soccer in the driving rain and freezing wind.

And no parent was going to stop them from enjoying this moment.

Harrison is able to own his own boots and play soccer – and tennis, basketball, take swimming lessons, go to Laser Skirmish for his birthday party – because of universal health care, the government-funded nurses that visit him twice daily at school, his parents’ employment status and because he had the incredible blessing of being born in Australia. As we spend time with our asylum seeker or refugee friends I become acutely aware that Harrison would no longer be with us if he had been born almost anywhere else in the world.

As I watched Harrison play, marveling that I was able to experience this day despite his tenuous beginning in life, I saw the same joy magnified in the faces of parents who’d escaped horrific circumstances with the dream of giving their family the peace, safety and opportunities of a better life.

But despite being here in Australia, this dream is yet only partly realised. Around 30,000 people, including thousands of children, are now living on bridging visas in the Australian community after arriving here by boat to seek asylum. They’re banned from working and receive 89% of the Centrelink allowance an equivalent Australian family would receive – to cover rent, food, clothing, transport, full-priced medications and anything else needed for family life. It’s not enough to get by, let alone buy soccer boots for the kids. Every day, families like these attend Welcome to Australia’s Welcome Centre in Adelaide, requesting food parcels, blankets, baby clothes, nappies… many of the things we take for granted.

That’s why we launched Asylum Sneakers. Not because soccer boots are the solution to the legislated poverty inflicted on these families by our government, but because those kids are kids like mine. They deserve the right to play sport, to make friends, to be a part of the community. Their parents deserve the right to see their children happy, even when they don’t have the means to give them the same opportunities I can give my children. And because, as our Asylum Sneakers ambassador Les Murray says, soccer is a “tool of survival” for young refugees, like Les, as they settle into an unfamiliar place.

While our leaders try to drive these children back to the places from which they fled, we’re raising money to give hundreds of them, all over Australia, a “tool of survival” that we hope not only helps them make it through the struggle, but to thrive, belong and enjoy life in their new community.

Brad Chilcott is the National Director of Welcome to Australia. To learn more about Asylum Sneakers and help asylum seeker kids play soccer, visit here. Follow Brad on Twitter here.