Want to redesign an app but can’t find its users

There's an app I am really interested in. It's an app about rural journalism. In India we don't have news channels covering the issues of rural areas (well they do cover but it's not enough). The app which I want to redesign is actually doing something to raise the voice of rural india. The only problem is that it's still in the early stages and it only has 1k+ downloads. The app was released in 2020. Because of this I can't really find its users. The app doesn't have any Discord, subreddit, etc. It has a Facebook page but the users are not there.

What should I do? I don't want to skip the user research part. Some people suggested that I should do some competitive analysis but is it enough?

Edit : I AM NOT WORKING WITH THE DEVELOPERS OF THE APP.