'History is being made right now': New app focused on Black history, news and businesses

Empowerment through BLM app From CTV Kitchener's Stephanie Villella: A new app focused on amplifying Black voices and businesses wants to help with education.

KITCHENER — Two students at the University of Guelph have developed a new Black Lives Matter app.

The app features Black history, news and maps of Black-owned businesses.

Creators Sunny Nakra and Samuel Boylan-Sajous said the app is meant to educate and empower.

"It gives people the opportunity to take what they've learned and actually transition into doing something," Nakra said.

The app, called BLM, is also meant to raise awareness about the movement.

"History is being made right now," Boylan-Sajous said. "Thirty years from now, we're going to look back at this and it's just going to be one of those very powerful things that happened in human history."

The app is free and includes information on Black history, slavery and segregation. It also includes information and petitions related to the BLM movement.

"It really makes you aware and makes you able to put yourself in that position and understand what someone like a Black male or female may have gone through throughout that time period," Nakra said.

"The people that want to help Black lives, they can do that by supporting Black-owned businesses," Boylan-Sajous said. "Having that feature I figured was a good idea."

The pair said they want to keep the BLM movement alive, especially because they've experienced racism.

"It wasn't really a story for our time to share or for us to say, but if you want to give people a platform and actually educate people, that's how you can get change," Nakra said.

The app features the song "Rise Up" by Sarah Jade.

"The whole video campaign was meant to build the emotion and then the call to action was actually the app itself," Nakra said.

The app launched two weeks ago and has been downloaded more than 750 times.