Can a president also be a dad, and can they handle both roles? Why does my mom have to work in two jobs? Is it right that only girls wash dishes after chemistry experiments and not boys? Answers and inspiration for those who will be voting for a new head of state in the 2023 presidential elections are provided in the new book “I Choose Children, Whom Do You Choose?” It is compiled from engaging and readable interviews with personalities who have shown an interest in running for the position of president in recent months. This unique book project by Ivana Tykac is being published in collaboration with Epocha Publishers.
The book “I Choose Children, Whom Do You Choose?” brings together a unique group of individuals who, in the past few months, have become more or less familiar to the public as presidential candidates in the 2023 elections. These candidates include Danuše Nerudova, Denisa Rohanova, Alena Vitaskova, Andrej Babis, Jaroslav Basta, Tomas Brezina, Pavel Fischer, Karel Janecek, Milos Knor, Ivo Mares, Martin Stropnicky, Josef Stredula, and Tomas Zima. All of them respond to the same 16 questions devised by the children themselves.
“The idea for the book emerged spontaneously during one of our family discussions, during which my children couldn’t hide their surprise at the number of often completely unknown people who aspire to become the president. When they began to discuss what they would change or do if they ever became the head of state, I was amazed by the many humorous and wise ideas they came up with. It made me realize that if we, adults, give children the space to express themselves on more serious topics, we can learn things that often escape us in the light of everyday concerns,” explains the author of the original project, Ivana Tykac. She is a businesswoman, philanthropist, and the founder of WOMEN FOR WOMEN, o.p.s., as well as the Lunches for Children project, which helps pay for school lunches for thousands of underprivileged schoolchildren each year.
Thanks to her long-standing successful collaboration with Czech elementary schools, Tykac and her colleagues were able to contact over a thousand schools across the Czech Republic. They asked students to submit questions for potential presidents. “We were amazed at the tremendous response our initiative generated, how actively children got involved in the project, what interested them, and the questions they asked. We received a record number of diverse questions that convinced me that students are interested in social issues and care about who will serve as the head of state for the next five years,” explains Tykac about how the project came to be. Subsequently, she reached out to those candidates and nominees we don’t see on TV every day. What intrigued her even more was why they were running for the office of the head of state. However, she also contacted some well-known faces to ensure the responses would be diverse and provide a comprehensive picture of the current presidential election.
“I’m glad that most of the candidates we approached embraced our project with enthusiasm and earnestly answered the children’s questions. Thanks to this, the general public can now form an understanding of how individual candidates approach the questions of our young fellow citizens. While these children may not have the right to vote, they constitute a significant part of our society and need to be taken seriously,” explains Tykac.
The unconventional interviews provide an interesting comparison of the presidential candidates’ views on the functioning of the presidential office. They answer questions such as: What are their thoughts on adopting the euro or Islam, how they will handle the situation when a mom needs two jobs to support her family, and whether it’s true that Czechoslovakia was the most developed country in the world. Since some of the candidates being interviewed did not officially submit their candidacy for various reasons, the book also becomes a unique testimony to those whose journey towards their dream ended before it even began. This one-of-a-kind project that brings politicians and children together is complemented by the author Ivana Tykac’s glosses and illustrated portraits of the candidates created by Filip Sodomka.
