CHARLIE ALICE RAYA – explorer, creator, author, photographer

‘We failed to take action when action would have been a piece of cake compared to how much we need to redo and rethink now. We can’t afford divides, we can’t afford interests, we can’t afford screwing each other. But we can, for once, get our priorities right, get rid of destructive narratives, find a way to make trust in each other possible, and start over.’

©Charlie Alice Raya, book 4/1, building, campaigns

See the dailies for a chapter from book 4, building, part 1 >

CAMPAIGNS
FOR OUR FUTURE

What’s this about?

Fiction meets reality

In book 4/1 of the easy town books, the project teams have to convince the British government and the British public to let them build a town experiment on an estate that has been offered to the project.

The offer of the estate expires in about six weeks. And it is within that short period of time that the project teams have to develop, prepare and execute campaigns strong enough to turn the tables in their favour.

The campaigns I drafted for this book are often fun, fearless and relevant for many urgent issues we need to face for our societies and for our planet.

Therefore I decided to smudge the lines between fiction and reality and share my ideas prior to the final draft of book 4/1.

This has the additional advantage that I can also publish all the material that won’t make it into the book version.

How will this work?

Countdown, chapter by chapter

The story’s Campaigns & Negotiations team has a core of 39 days until the deadline.

I will use a free Substack newsletter to publish those 39 days (1-26 pages). All published chapters are also available on my easy town books website.

In addition, I will pick up ideas from the chapters and discuss them on Bluesky, where I will also add posts on material that didn’t make it into the book.

Everyone is welcome to comment, to use the ideas for our future, to add their own ideas.

The campaign ideas are of particular value to activists. But they are also an inspiration to everyone to get actively involved in shaping our future.

This is our world. We can shape it. And these campaigns are fun, inspiring and challenging, in a good way, and in a good trouble way.

Support the Charlie Alice Raya projects

Support the projects

You can support me, my work and the future of the projects with a donation, with a paid subscription on Substack, by purchasing my books or by buying one of my Fine Art Prints.

Find out more on my photography website >

Find me on Substack
CAMPAIGNS FOR OUR FUTURE

Find me on Substack
IT’S OUR WORLD

CAMPAIGNS FOR OUR FUTURE

UPDATE

book 4/1, building, campaigns

I started publishing chapters on August, 15, and have to concede now that my plan had been good, but I was trying to do too much all at once.

Presently, twenty chapters are online, some of them particularly packed with ideas, fun, questions, trouble.

The next chapters to look forward to are day 17 which is a day off for the campaigns and a day full of challenges for the Campaigns & Negotiations Team, including a second hearing for Alice in the House of Parliament, with an MP from the Outer Hebrides making some observations about islands and treasures. Day 16 dives straight into that campaign days motto: Loneliness with another episode of Phoenix Dragonfly’s radio show.

How will I continue?

I want to complete days 17-9 in the upcoming days, plus posts for Digging Deeper. Once all of this is ready, I will begin publishing those chapters and posts and hopefully finish those publications on September, 27, the previous final day.

After that I would take a short break, then prepare the final eight days of the campaigns time in the story, plus all Digging Deeper post for that time.

Once all of this material is ready to go online, I will begin posting, hopefully in early October.

AND AFTER THAT?

Looking at my original plan which saw me crisscross and intertwine several projects and discuss content and ideas from the chapters online while introducing ideas for an alternative business network and more, I am considering to do a second run of CAMPAIGNS FOR OUR FUTURE.

This time a the core material would be ready, and I could use it to initiate the actual discussions and challenges I had planned. Plus, I can revise and extent the existing material.

It would be great to combine this second run with more explorations of nature, sharing my daily discoveries and illustrating the connection between our chances of wellbeing and the importance to connect to nature and to restore our ecosystems.

I would love to travel for this, visit national parks, rewilding projects, eco farms and anything else nature which I could support with my photographic work. In fact, such visits could become part of the campaigns itself, raising awareness for everything that is happening and how more can happen.

Why go to all this trouble?

We urgently need to address a whole range of issues which make us and our planet sick.

In order to come together, to rethink and reshape together, we can’t have enough ideas for campaigns and for ways to take action.

With the second round, I hope to unearth as much as possible of what these ideas have to offer for our future.

Whether and how I can actually do this, depends on whether I can find financial support for my projects.

Charlie Alice Raya, 22 September 2025

To join, stay up to date, ask questions, use one or all of these options:

Email
contact@charlie-alice-raya.org

On Bluesky
@campaign-ideas.bsky.social

@charlie-alice-raya.org

To receive updates and the campaign chapters of book 4/1, building, into your inbox, subscribe for free to my temporary newsletter Campaigns for our future on Substack which will be particularly active in August-December 2025 and which will be deleted (including your data) a week after the final notes for this project, very likely by the end of this year.

‘What’s more fun than to take a good look at the world and say: “OK, this sucks. Let’s try again.” I mean our project proposes a huge adventure: reshaping the world.’

About the author

I am an explorer who loves to pick up any WHAT and give it a good spin in my playground: the easy town story and sometimes the whole universe.

I am a creator who loves to dig deeper and who creates visions of ideas we can test, ideas with the potential of giving us the kind of boosts that allow us to evolve and thrive.

I am Charlie Alice Raya, born in 1972, in the then divided city of Berlin.

Find out more here: About Charlie Alice Raya