The Story of VAVV

The Inspiration Behind Vera Aqua Vera Vita

Vera Aqua Vera Vita was founded by Jacob Niemeier, a water resources engineer currently living in Murphy, Texas a suburb of Dallas. During a foreign mission trip in 2011 with a team of students from St. Thomas Aquinas’ Catholic Newman Center at Purdue University to Haiti a year after its devastating 2010 earthquake opened his eyes to the world’s biggest problems such as poverty, the food crisis, and the global water crisis.This trip combined with his studies at Purdue in Agricultural and Biological Engineering with a focus on water resources, ultimately inspired Jacob to respond to a calling from God to eventually start Vera Aqua Vera Vita.

Jacob says one story sticks with him every time he thinks back to his trip to Haiti:

“I was overwhelmed by the severity of poverty. There was a woman that walked from her tent carrying a bucket to the canal that was flowing through the city and filled up her bucket with water that looked like chocolate milk. The canal had animals defecating and walking around it, was visibly full of trash and litter, and had people washing their clothes and dumping their waste into it.”

He said he knew the woman was going to use the water for her family, and it was very likely going to make them sick if not kill them. This personal and firsthand encounter with the reality of the problem was pivotal in leading him to eventually start Vera Aqua Vera Vita which means “True Water True Life” and answer the call to provide clean, safe water to people in need in developing countries.

After graduating from Purdue University in 2012, Jacob accepted a position as a water resources engineer consultant in Dallas, Texas, as an Engineer in Training (E.I.T). He continued to foster his call and network building to have a strong foundation to launch Vera Aqua Vera Vita. An opportunity arose in 2015 when friends of Jacob approached him about a community in the Piuran region of Peru in need of clean water. As Jacob recounts:

“A few members of the pueblo of Monte Castillo had approached my friends to ask if they could help them get clean water because their children and elderly were suffering and dying, and immediately my friends thought of seeking out me to help them because in our social circles that we would hang out in, I would very often be talking about wanting to work to combat the global water crisis.”

Together with his friends, the journey to finally start Vera Aqua Vera Vita had begun with an enormous amount of prayer & support and a pilot project to bring clean, safe water to 7000+ people in to the aforementioned community, Monte Castillo. To solidify his credentials, in 2016, Jacob earned his Professional Engineering (P.E.) license and finally, on June 13, 2017, Vera Aqua Vera Vita, Inc. was born as a nonprofit NGO and began its mission to bring “True Water True Life” to the less fortunate in developing countries.

The pilot project in Monte Castillo that served as the final bit of motivation needed to launch VAVV started back in May 2015 and eventually commenced operations on Aug. 3, 2019, when the constructed and tested Water Treatment Plant was commissioned and ever since it has provided consistent access to clean water to the entire community.