The TRAJECTS African Hub presents a photojournal of the 2025 UCT Mobile School, held from 8 to 12 September in eMalahleni, South Africa’s coal-mining heartland. Titled “Reckoning with the Legacy of Coal: Exploring Just Transitions, Community Power, and Healing Landscapes,” the mobile school focused on coal power station decommissioning and pathways towards socio-economic well-being in coal-dependent towns.

Co-designed and co-organised with groundWork (Middelburg), the programme brought together activists from the Life After Coal Campaign and the Vukani Environmental Movement, former Komati Power Station workers, TRAJECTS fellows, Colombian participants, and academics. Central to the school was a critical examination of South Africa’s just transition frameworks, particularly how they address structural poverty, racialised inequality, and ecological harm rooted in coal mining.

The school opened with shared reflections on South African and Colombian experiences of coal extraction and the material realities of just transition “on the ground.” Participants engaged in shared learning through site visits to the decommissioned Komati Power Station and the Ummbila Emoyeni Wind Energy Facility, prompting reflection on who benefits from renewable energy transitions. A dedicated day of reflection enabled participants to collectively process these site visits and engage in open dialogue about how just energy transitions are unfolding in practice. The day concluded in eMpumelelweni township with Old King Coal, a play presented by the Life After Coal Coalition, written by playwright Mike van Graan, and performed by environmental justice activists. Through dialogue, site-based learning, and cultural expression, the mobile school foregrounded community voices and grounded understandings of just transitions in lived experience.