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

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 and Negotiations team has a core of 39 days until the deadline.

I will use a free Substack newsletter to publish a chapter a day during those 39 days (1-26 pages).

In addition, I will pick up ideas from the daily chapters and discuss them on Bluesky, where I will also add 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.

Support this project

The more the better

Support with comments, contributions, donations.

You can also choose a paid subscription on Substack which includes a copy of book 3/3, shaping and a copy of the final version of book 4/1, building.

If you take an annual paid subscription on the IT’S OUR WORLD newsletter, then you get access to all published Charlie Alice Raya books and all of book 4, building.

Find me on Substack
Campaigns for our future

Find me on Substack
IT’S OUR WORLD

What to read upfront

The easy town books

If you are solely interested in campaign ideas for your own work or because you’ve wanted to engage but haven’t a way to engage, then you don’t need to read any of the other books.

There will be one newsletter on August 15th which will include some passages from the final chapters of book 3/3, plus the prelude and the first chapter of book 4/1. These will provide enough background story for everyone who is mainly interested in the campaign ideas.

If you want to get into the story, but you don’t have much time, then you could start with book 3/3, shaping, which (among other things) builds up to the offer of the estate.

If you have enough time to read all of book 3, shaping, then you will have lived through the joys of creating a town project and experiment which aims at finding the sort of environment that allows humans to thrive, you will have lived through the agonies of some of the main characters, and the struggles the teams face.

If you are a thorough reader who is interested in rethinking pretty much everything that made us and our world sick, I recommend that you read books 1-3, from the first steps of the project, the travels around the world to connect the project internationally in book 2 to the shaping of the project in book 3.

CAMPAIGNS FOR OUR FUTURE

Timing

book 4/1, building, campaigns

Chapter by chapter release

15 August
Relevant snippets
book 3/3, shaping
&
Prelude and first chapter
book 4/1, building, campaigns

19 August
Start of free daily chapters via Substack
until 27 September

26 August
Campaign ideas in daily chapters, on Bluesky & Co
main posts until 18 September

20 September
Showdown in daily chapters

27 September
day 1, final daily chapter

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 impulses & ideas for campaigns and ways to take action.

In the playbook for change, I will discuss a number of tools (work in progress, contributors welcome).

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

@charliealiceraya.bsky.social

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/September 2025 and which will be deleted (including your data) a week after the final notes for this project, very likely by mid October, at the latest.

‘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