Tereza Zajícová is the sister of autistic Dorotka, who appears in the feature-length documentary Children of the Full Moon, that was broadcast by Czech TV last year. When she was 16 years old, she wrote a song about the challenging co-living with her sister and difficult situations she is experiencing. Now, two years later, she records ‘Full Moon Kid’, plays the ukulele and attracts attention to the unsatisfactory situation in care of people and families affected by the autistic spectrum disorder. Within the framework of the April – Month of Autism, our organization Hope for Children of the Full Moon highlights the need for a systematic change in the functioning of social services in the Czech Republic.
In the song, Tereza returns to the most demanding period of her life when her sister experienced an acute psychological crisis and seriously hurt herself. Dorotka had to be hospitalized several times in a psychiatric hospital. To see and hear manifestations of restlessness and self-harm was very demanding for the teenage girl, and music became a means for her to deal with feelings. Because Dorotka had seizures often at full moon time, Terka used the phrase Children of the Full Moon in the title of the song.
“I want my song to show that life with a person suffering from an autistic spectrum disorder is not always easy, but it really opens your heart and changes your view of the world. People like my sister have the same right to live a happy life as the rest of us,“ says Terka Zajícová.
The song also accompanies a video clip in which Terka and Dorotka perform. The music was produced by Marek Štifter, the camera by Milan Bureš, edited by Jan Hála.
The Society of Hope for Children of the Full Moon was created in 2017 as the initiative of Petra and Petr Třešňáková after the broadcast of a document of the same name in Czech Television. Its mission is to change the system of functioning of social services in the Czech Republic. The Petition of the Society for Affordable Social Services has so far signed 19,000 people. In order to draw attention to the problems of families with ASD, the association continues by filming a documentary document that it regularly publishes. In 2018, he wants to introduce an analysis of social services for people with PAS and other behavioral disorders in the Czech Republic and abroad.