Life After Emancipation: Adaptation and Adjustment

Dumkirinur - The immigration facilities in Rens serve only as a filter to assist former slaves toward integration with Minmatar society. Unless complications arise, such as medical issues or an extreme unwillingness to incorporate, the new arrivals are moved within the first week to housing programs, where they receive further support and work placements or education.

"The numbers of trained and educated refugees we've been seeing are surprisingly high," reports Tjaard Mtaki, one of the career advisors employed by the integration facilities. "All of those immigrants who served on stations and ships have a high level of education in fields such as mathematics and physics. We've seen expert mechanics and engineers who can't read or write a word, but they can accurately explain the finer points of essential systems maintenance. We're finding the gaps in their education and helping to fill them."

For younger refugees like Onyeka Djekatro, the changes can be intimidating. She has been offered a place at the Republic Military School, helping to maintain the station's vast essential systems. "It's so different. I have no one to tell me what I should be doing. I go to classes every day. They tell us what we can expect from living here, but sometimes it doesn't seem real."

Onyeka is far from being the only former slave who has reported difficulty in adapting to their new liberty. Many freed slaves have admitted to feelings of apprehension when venturing beyond the confines of their quarters, and groups residing in the same housing clusters have begun to band together in small pseudo-family units. "We look out for our own," said one woman, who refused to be named.