One Issue, Two Communities: Who Gets to Be Young?
Part One: Baghdad
Everyone in youth work uses the word "youth." We put it in mission statements, grant proposals, and program names, including the one that brought twenty Iraqi high schoolers to Kalamazoo this July.
So, we asked a simpler question than usual. Not what young people need, and not whether adults are listening to them. Just this: where does youth begin, where does it end, and who gets to draw the line?
This two-part series asks the same questions in two communities.
Part One comes from Hussain Khalid, an adult mentor with the 2026 Iraqi Young Leaders Exchange Program (IYLEP). He trained in communication engineering but built his career in civil society, working on projects in youth, peacebuilding, human rights, and community development. "For me, becoming part of IYLEP is an opportunity to keep learning, challenge my own perspectives, and understand how I can contribute to others while continuing to grow myself," he says.
“The one person living through their youth is usually the last one consulted about when it’s supposed to end.”
A measure without a mark
Hussain's first answer set the tone. "The honest truth: we don't really define [youth], not formally."
He explains that the Iraqi state only puts numbers on age when it needs to for something practical. He explains that juvenile law deals with childhood, not youth and that the last census sorted people by working age and didn’t use the word youth. "So officially, 'youth' almost doesn't exist as a category. The state sees children, workers, and old people. Youth is the thing that lives in between, and nobody official is measuring it."
He identifies the clearest lines as coming from NGOs and donors: 18 to 30, 18 to 35, 20 to 35. That's "only because they're forced to," Hussain says. "You can't run a youth program without writing an eligibility number in the proposal." The result: "The same person can be 'youth' for one project and too old for the next one, and nothing about them changed except which form they're filling out."
And the young people themselves? "The one person living through their youth is usually the last one consulted about when it's supposed to end."
Not a birthday, a status
If youth doesn't end with a specific number in Iraq, what does? "Not an age. It's milestones, and marriage is the big one."
Hussain details the expected path: graduate, get a job, marry, and set up your own home. "Once you've done those, especially married, people quietly stop calling you young. What you start hearing instead is 'you're not young anymore,' and it almost always comes right before someone gives you advice."
The word doesn't mean the same thing everywhere, either. Hussain notes that the same society that tells a single, employed thirty-two-year-old they aren't young anymore will still call a newcomer to public life young. "In public life, young means new, not part of the old guard. At home, young means not settled yet, not married, not carrying your own household. Same word, opposite verdict, and it depends entirely on who's asking and what they're really trying to measure."
“Shabab also carries a sense of belonging somehow in a way ‘youth’ can’t.”
A word that means more than an age
The closest Arabic word shabab. Hussain says it isn't a perfect match. Its edges are more fluid than the English "youth," which development work uses as a neat demographic box. But shabab carries something the English word never does.
"Shabab also carries a sense of belonging somehow in a way 'youth' can't." Iraqis say ya shabab, "hey guys," to a group of friends of any age. "It's warmth and camaraderie between equals. You would never turn to your friends in English and call them 'youth.'" He reports that even Jodi and Sonya from Global Ties Kalamazoo were using it.
There's also rooho khadra, "his soul is green." Iraqis say it most often about someone in their fifties or sixties who is still lively and still chasing things. To Hussain, that shows who really controls the word: "So even the purest 'something you are' version of youth, a green soul, only becomes real once the community decides to call it that in you." His summary: "The feeling is yours. The final say almost never is."
Who doesn't get to be young
Iraqis often mix up youth with adolescence, Hussain says, and treat youth as the opposite of responsibility. "So, the moment a young person shoulders real weight, people stop seeing them as young and start calling them an adult, not because of their age but because of their load."
“After years of war, that happened early,” he explains, describing how some young Iraqis, particularly those affected by conflict and displacement, can transition to adulthood extraordinarily early. He gives examples of eldest children running the household at fourteen after losing a parent, children working from twelve to feed their siblings, or children growing up in camps after being displaced. “None of them are forbidden from being young by a rule. Circumstance just took the phase before they could live it.”
Gender moves the benchmark too. Hussain says girls tend to face adult expectations earlier, including expectations about family reputation. "Boys are often allowed to stay 'kids' longer, with more freedom and a gentler drift toward adulthood, though when their turn comes it lands as the weight of being a provider."
What bothers him most is the mismatch. A teenager can be trusted to raise younger siblings and still be told they're "still a child" when choosing a career. "We give them adult responsibility without adult agency, expecting them to carry weight before we trust them with autonomy." And: "The mistake is treating age as a substitute for assessing the individual."
What Kalamazoo showed him
Asked what an American sixteen-year-old gets that an Iraqi one doesn't, Hussain's answer was immediate: "The biggest one for me is the car." In the U.S., driving at sixteen opens up a social world parents don't control. In Iraq, he notes, that kind of freedom doesn’t come until eighteen.
We also asked about the word that kept coming up in the students' vlogs: together. Hussain says the emphasis is layered. The program puts students in teams, their age made them want to stay there, and Iraqi life is rarely lived alone. "The culture makes 'we' the native tongue, youth make them want to speak it, and the program handed them a reason to say it out loud on camera."
“You stop being a kid in my community…”
We ended with a fill-in-the-blank. Hussain gave several answers. Two stand out: You stop being a kid in my community…
"…when someone starts depending on you."
And: "…when you're old enough to be held responsible, but still young enough to be told what to do."
Coming next: Part Two
Hussain describes a word that everyone uses and no one officially owns. Part Two takes the same questions to Kalamazoo, where the category is written into age brackets, grant language, and program eligibility. Is the line clearer here, or does it just look that way on paper? Stay tuned.