*ON THE FENCE LINE: PHOLA’S STRUGGLE FOR WATER, DIGNITY AND DEVELOPMENT.* These images are from Waya Waya, an informal settlement section of Phola in Mpumalanga. They tell a story about what it means to live alongside mining while still struggling for something as basic as clean and reliable water. Water remains one of the community’s biggest struggles. With no reliable supply, residents have been forced to dig their own boreholes simply to survive. The water they draw from these boreholes is used for virtually everything, washing, cooking and other household needs, including drinking. Community members say a municipal water project was started in the area, but work stopped. They have received little or no proper communication explaining why it was discontinued or when it will resume. And water is not the only unfinished promise. Waya Waya began as an informal settlement and was subsequently approved by the local municipality. Basic-service projects have since been initiated in the area, yet community members report that none has been completed and that communication about their status remains inadequate. All of this is happening on the fence line of the Blue Mine operation. The mine began as an open-cast operation before moving underground. Yet residents living alongside this extractive activity say they have seen no meaningful development in their community. That contradiction matters. Mineral extraction can take place metres from people's homes while families dig into the earth themselves to find water. Mining operations can change the landscape around a community while basic infrastructure remains unfinished. Development can be promised on paper while people continue waiting for the most basic conditions of a dignified life. *This is what inequality looks like on the mining fence line.* And it is precisely why a Just Transition cannot simply be about replacing one form of energy with another. It must confront the existing injustices experienced by communities that have carried the social and environmental costs of extraction for generations. As part of our community dialogues in Phola, residents are documenting these realities and identifying the priorities that any genuinely Just Transition must address. Communities are not passive beneficiaries waiting for somebody else to decide what development they need. They are rights-holders whose lived experience must shape those decisions, the principle at the heart of MACUA, WAMUA and YAMUA's organising approach. This work forms part of the Strengthening Workers' Active Participation in South Africa's Just Transition (SWAP) Project, implemented in partnership with SATRI and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) and co-funded by the European Union. The project seeks precisely to strengthen the participation of workers, communities and women and to ensure that community experience informs Just Transition policy and decision-making. For Waya Waya, the demand begins with something very simple: *Water is not a luxury.* *Development cannot remain an unfinished promise.* *And there can be no Just Transition without justice for the communities already living with the consequences of extraction.* Nothing about us without us. *#Phola#WayaWaya#WaterIsALife#JustTransition#MiningAffectedCommunities#EnvironmentalJustice#CommunityPower #MACUA#WAMUA #YAMUA #Mpumalanga*