4. STANDARDS AND EXPECTATIONS: When working with community speakers, we are guided by the following standards and expectations and seek to promote these as good practice to other organisations: 1. Expert by experience The speakers we recommend are all community speakers. Many work as advocates within affected communities and all are experts on the impact of statelessness in practice. We do not ask people to disclose their current residence or nationality status or publicise this. This means our proposed speakers can include, for example, people who used to be stateless and acquired a nationality, or people who have never been stateless themselves, but who work closely within their communities with community members who are. We recommend framing their expertise as a ‘representative of a community affected by statelessness’, ‘expert by experience’, or any other framing that the speaker themselves requests. 2. Audience: before, during and after event Prior to an event, we provide community speakers with a thorough explanation of who their audience will be and who is participating in the event. If the event will be recorded, we also explain who will have access to the recording after the event. Where photos are used for event promotion, these are agreed with speakers in advance. 3. By-lines When introducing and promoting speakers we use the by-lines they provide (e.g., Executive Director, Stateless activist, Student, Campaigner, Changemaker, Activist, Individual member, etc.) rather than introducing them as ‘a stateless person’. We ask speakers to confirm their preferred by-line in advance. 4. ‘Telling a story’ We don't ask or expect people to share personal experiences (though they may wish to do so) because this is personal. We find this approach gives speakers the freedom to choose what they want to talk about and enhances the breadth of what is covered beyond what we had imagined. 5. Remuneration When connecting organisations with community speakers, we stress the importance of offering remuneration. Community speakers often rely on speaking opportunities as a source of income or for donations to support their work in the community. In the case where other speakers are being paid for their time, our position is that community speakers should also be paid accordingly and in line with other speakers. Regardless of budget, we recommend transparency with speakers from initial contact about whether this engagement will be remunerated or not. 6. Speaker selection Where possible we try to propose more than one speaker. We encourage the organiser to speak to each individual speaker so that you can make a decision about who fits with your programme.