As the first African American woman in Congress, Shirley Chisholm once said, If they dont give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair. And that was exactly what Julio Rivera did when he built an application dedicated to the Latinx and Black community.

I noticed myself feeling disconnected, isolated, and more depressed, so I decided to look online to see if there were any digital resources, wrote Rivera in a statement. To my surprise, I found very little and I was even more surprised when I talked to other folks in the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color community, they felt the same way.

Rivera put his knowledge in software engineering to the test and created Liberate Meditation, after he noticed that the wellness industry is not inclusive enough with the people of color. Deep inside I felt this was a calling of service from a higher power. A calling to start not just a company but to help amplify the efforts of making the dharma and sangha more accessible for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. I want people all over the world to feel that same feeling of safety, connection, empowerment, and hope, said Rivera.

The meditation app mission is to support the Black, Indigenous, and POC community to thrive with love while healing racial trauma and wounds of internalized oppression.

The Liberate Meditation team assured that is actively working on ways to cultivate environments in-person and virtually for its users always offering a wide range of content, and covering topics to elevate the meditation practice, plus developing compassion for people

We want to help empower people, not only to meditate, but to show them that theres something you can do about your suffering, Rivera said to Buddhist magazine, Lions Roar. We can help each other get free and be liberated. Rivera, who identifies as Afro-Latino, also added that he want folks of color all over the world to know that they are not alone.

According to the company, the teachers are building long-term 1-on-1 relationships with the users or students. The app available for Apple and Android offers to users the possibility of searching the content either by Ancestors, The Body, Gratitude, Love, Micro-aggressions, Mindfulness, and Self-worth meditation or by the teachers name.

We have a long way to go but I believe our meditation app is just the first step to fulfilling our mission, Rivera added. We believe in a future where the BIPOC community is moving as a unit to help us collectively heal and be free. We believe this is not just a Liberate effort but a community effort so this is a call to action, said the founder inviting al the community to share the app with friends and family.

To download the app to your iPhone click here; to download for Android click here.

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Meet Julio Rivera: The Man who Wants to Bring Meditation to Our People Through Tech - BELatina