A Gen-Z Perspective on Donegal Giving: An Initiative With A Lot Of Heart That Gives Hope To A Seemingly Hopeless Future

“Digital Natives.” A label often given to my generation and perceived as an undeniable virtue. But in my earnest opinion, it is detrimental. Destructive. And, most unfortunately, entirely true. We are literal natives to the Internet, often spending more time with an illuminated screen that leaves us feeling perpetually numb than being present with our own real loved ones. Our feeds know more about us than our families and friends do. We’ve built impenetrable walls around ourselves. From a young age, we were taught by highly addictive algorithms that the most valuable thing we could be is consumers. And not just of products; of impossibly overwhelming amounts of information too. Light-heartedly named “doomscrolling”, this playful moniker does not capture the true impact on our psyche of being served vitriol and dread on a silver platter each and every moment of our lives.

With every flick of a finger it’s:

• A new insecurity unlocked (and surprise! It’s a perfectly normal bodily function!)
• Another worldwide disaster we’ve become desensitised to.
• AI robbing yet another passion or career path from us (and our drinking water).
• Someone your age (or, painfully, younger than you) doing astronomically better than you in life that leaves you thinking “what am I doing wrong?”

With every morsel of news, it feels like we’re inching closer to the end of the world.

So, then we let out a sigh and put down the wretched phone. And pick it right back up again no less than a minute later. We simply have nothing else to do. Why? Because we live in a generation where all the dreamers, artists, inventors, innovators and raconteurs prefer to hide and not proudly pursue or share their talent with the world, in fear of being labelled “cringe” or secretly recorded (I mean, for crying out loud, my generation doesn’t even like to dance anymore!). We all choose the comfort of conformity and watching others chase their own dreams while leaving ours to grow woefully stagnant.

The dichotomy of being a young person these days, is that while we are more connected than ever before in all of human history, there is no connection. No community. A village? Artefact of the past. And I can’t lie, most days I feel lonely. And that is definitely not exclusive to me. It is something each individual one of us have in common, yet feel helpless in coming together to stop it.

With all that in mind, and the abysmal state of the job market (it seriously feels like you need at least 25 years of experience at age 20…and that’s just for an entry-level job), it seems like everything is utterly hopeless for our generation.

But those feelings shifted in me when I heard about Donegal Giving.

I discovered the county-wide initiative last year and ever since, without fail, coming across a post from their socials breaks up the fear and despair of my usual scroll. It just means so much to me that in a world that often seems like a lost cause, with our humanity dwindling more and more each day in the pursuit of wealth, that there are people (already very busy people might I add) that are committed to making our community a better place. The fact that someone sat down and took time to create graphics, film videos and craft captions with the sole intent of encouraging us all to be kind to one another brings a very comforting realisation. Maybe all of society isn’t as apathetic as social media makes it seem?

And much like how the origins of our loneliness are not solely confined to social media, neither are Donegal Giving’s efforts to change our community for the true good of us all. They have partnered with ATU Donegal to give marketing students a real-life insight into research methods. After a successful pilot of teaching Transition Year students all about the importance of giving and benevolence, the social enterprise is planning to roll out their programme to 5th and 6th class students (which brings me an immense amount of relief, as I often worry about the generation behind ours and their wellbeing).

But what I want to specially shine a spotlight on, are Donegal Giving’s events. I attended the initiative’s launch event last November, and when I say the sense of compassion and joy in the place was palpable, I am not exaggerating in the slightest. At the expense of sounding cringe (oh, the horror!), it really did feel like I had stepped into a room of friends. People from all sorts of walks of life were contentedly conversing with one another, from students to business owners to volunteers. I myself even approached strangers to compliment them and I usually spend events plastered to the wall hoping no one notices me.

And the great news is that Donegal Giving has another event coming up November 12th this year, held again at the wonderful An Grianán Theatre in Letterkenny. With the theme “Footprints Of Giving”, this event will encourage you to ask yourself “who shaped you?” and “who are you shaping?” And the latter prompt truly intrigued me. The reason why I was apprehensive about attending the first event was because, as a young person, I often feel like I have nothing to offer others. Especially not to anyone older than me. That I have to “wait my turn” until I’m old enough and have collected an adequate amount of life experience to be able to help anyone in a remotely meaningful way. But the more I learn from Donegal Giving, the more I realise that simply is not true. While we can’t give much money (sorry to call us out, but it’s true) or as much professional expertise as those decades into honing their craft, that doesn’t mean we have nothing to give. We can give a listening ear, a passing compliment to a total stranger, a “saw this and thought of you” text to a friend who’s been particularly quiet. One example of my own is that I now ask people what their favourite memories and stories are when I’m talking with them. To see the utter joy sprawl across their face as they reminisce and are made to feel truly seen, it’s one of the best feelings I’ve ever had the honour of experiencing.

So to my fellow Gen Z-ers, I sincerely hope you can come to the Footprints of Giving event in November; I’d love to see you there, genuinely. We are most definitely welcome there. A lot of uncertainty looms over us about our futures but one thing is true: we will always have plenty to give. We can make real changes in the orbits of our communities. No gesture or act is too small. Ever.

Just because life can be unkind, doesn’t mean we have to be. In fact, we should be gentle and caring in spite of it. We’re all alive for the first time ever, might as well make it a nice experience for one another.