Badooer makes music in Montserrat

Here at Badoo HQ, we like to think we’re always making people’s days a little brighter – bringing new couples together, making dates between strangers possible, coming up with a never-ending stream of romantic puns... But sometimes, we get to take it a little further and actually do some real good. 

When Evgeny, one of our QA engineers, had the opportunity to go and perform for the Montserrat Foundation to help support the island’s population, of course we jumped at the chance to support him.

If you haven’t heard of Montserrat before, or why it’s in need of support, it’s a small island in the West Indies that suffered a terrible volcanic eruption about 20 years ago. The capital city, along with pretty much the whole of the southern half of the island, was buried under about 12m of mud and debris, and several more eruptions, gas clouds and rock flows have further damaged the area since. The whole population had to be evacuated to the northern half of the island, and a new airport, capital city and housing for everyone affected had to be constructed.

More than half the population of Montserrat chose to leave – and have been granted full British citizenship so they can settle here and start fresh – but for the people who decided to stay, the island is still their home. And that’s where the Montserrat Foundation comes in, along with our very own Evgeny.

Evgeny’s been playing the piano since he was seven years old, when the rest of us were still making daisy chains and shooting lasers from our fingers, and his trip to the island was part of the Foundation’s education programme. While he was there, he performed a kind of “lecture-concert” for the children, as he calls it, that included a combo of classical music, contemporary songs and quizzes to make the whole thing more interactive. He also joined in with music lessons and even performed a song by the island’s most popular artist, Arrow.

‘Meeting the people there was the best part of the trip. I met many incredibly talented, fascinating people who work hard to make life on tiny Montserrat better, people who care about education and arts. And the children, with their endless energy, were just amazing!

‘The community on the island is quite small, fewer than 5000 people, so naturally all of the children are very curious about new people – meaning I got a lot of attention! Most of them had never heard live classical music before, and I was very surprised when all of them listened to it very carefully. Then during the pop/rock part, some of them started to sing  – and they sang really well, believe me!’

This isn’t the first time Evgeny’s had the chance to take part in charity events. He recently took part in a 12 hour “piano marathon” in Kings Cross, where pianists played “The Infinite Piano Series” for 12 hours straight to support Amnesty International. However, it is the first time Badoo’s had the chance to support him, and we loved that we got to be a part of his latest adventure.

‘I feel really proud of Badoo. Support for initiatives like this one makes our company not just a place to work, but a place where you feel like people believe in you and your ideas.

‘Life on such a small island is tough for most of the children, but music is powerful and I hope that more of them will expose themselves to the arts. Many them did come to me after the concert with a lot of questions, which makes me think we did the right thing!

‘Overall, it was an incredible experience, and I hope Badoo continues to support other people doing things like this, whatever their activities might be.’