In Czech Republic more than ten thousand children grow up in a foster care. Approximately three quarters of them are in the care of their relatives. According to available statistics almost nine thousand children live in the institutional care. Approximately three thousand children removed from their original families add up to them every year. Only 136 kids were succesfully placed in a family care last year. A foster family is currently being seeked for five thousand children. Concrete kids stand behind these numbers. The have their unique fates and family stories. Yet they have some things in common. Removed children often have lowered chances in life. They are met with lowered expectations in their surroundings and they face many prejudices of the society. Processing of the injustices is a life-long task and they continue to bear the consequences. The narrations of these kids‘ life stories make us realize how important role concrete situations, concrete people, happy and unhappy coincidences or seemingly unimportant moments play in their lives. We are able to observe whatever may influence their choices and direct their destinies. And what remains in the memory as a reminiscence of a certain event or experience often defies statistics or social anylitics‘ generalizations. In the Uncertain Homes edition we offer you comics originating from shards of life stories of children who for various reasons didn‘t grow up with their original families. Their protagonists narrated their stories to us and they were able to follow the process through which they became the heroes of the individual comics. All stated testimonies are authentic.
In the Stronger Then Some comics we sometimes faced uncertainties and some memories of our hero Honza were hard to classify. Some periods of his life - his early childhood foremost - he had no memory of. For this reason in textual parts of the comics with Honza‘s agreement we used facts from his personal files. Names of some characters were changed upon Honza‘s request.
We thank to Honza Oračko for his willingness to take part in the creation of this book and for openness with which he told us his life story. We would also like to thank to everyone who contributed to the creation of this book, foremost to Petr Bořkovec and Rut Veselá. This story is written and drawn in conformity with authentic testimonies. Names of some characters were changed.
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