Session Host Guide

Who is this guide for?

This guide is for everyone facilitating a session at the Festival. We believe all facilitators can help make MozFest a more inclusive space by thinking about language justice, even in small ways.

At the same time, we know that not everyone starts from the same place. That’s why some of these strategies are especially useful for those who don’t speak English as their main language, or who want to bring in participants from communities that are often left out of English-only conversations.

You’ll find different kinds of ideas here: some can be done in a few minutes, others might take more planning. You can choose what works for you and your session and plan strategies into three main moments: Before, during and after the Festival.

Before the Festival

Outreach: Setting the stage. Materials to prepare. Invitations to make.

Reach out with intention, open the door to co-designing

• Think about the people you want in the room. Make a list of communities or networks who care about the same topic. Check what languages they speak. Don’t worry if you don’t speak those languages, just take note. The pre-Festival Facilitator’s calls can be a nice opportunity to start these connections.
• If possible, invite someone who speaks the language you’d like to add to co-facilitate or help create a space for others. This person can even help create material that connect with other speakers that care about your topic.
• Join conversations on Discord to connect and invite people as well. You can use these spaces to invite ideas and build energy.

Prepare session materials in more than one language

• Translate your session title and description into the language you’d like to include. If you manage to find a co-facilitator, you can see what you can create in the other language you’d like to add.
• If you have slides, make a second version with minimal text in the language you’d like to include.
• If you use handouts or collaborative docs, you can prepare them in both languages or even leave room for participants to translate together during your session.

Make the promotion of your session an invitation

Share a short post in the language(s) you’re interested in and include your topic and your main ideas. Go beyond just saying you’ll be at the event. See these examples. See how they can work in other languages:

• This session is for anyone who’s ever had to explain their life in someone else’s words —or felt their story didn’t fit the form.
• We’ll talk about how language shapes access to justice, and how technologies like AI are (mis)understanding us.

You can also share that there will be material available in another language, or people within your team available to connect as well:

• We’ll be exploring how alternative language models can be used by grassroots groups: Join us! We will have material in Spanish and French, and you can connect with our team in those languages as well!
• Data centers, energy infrastructures and AI projects are coming to places that haven’t been asked. In this session, we’ll explore how communities can respond, resist, or reimagine tech development in their territories, and we’ll be doing it in English and Portuguese.
• The session is in English, but do feel free to join, even if English isn’t your main language. I’ll bring material for you to participate as comfortably as possible.

You can also ask help from friends or colleagues that belong to the communities you’re interested in. They can re-share your posts or add their thoughts in their own languages; that way your message will be delivered by members of the community itself.

During the Festival

Spaces to stretch, languages to welcome.

Be mindful of your audience and the languages they bring

MozFest brings together people with different ways of speaking, listening, and expressing themselves, in English and beyond. Some are fluent, others are not. Some prefer to speak out loud, others are more comfortable writing.

Your session might bring all of them into the same room.

There’s no single formula. Each session is different, and your strategies will depend on your language(s), your facilitation style, your audience, the time available, the resources you have, and the energy you want to put into it. What matters is that your session offers a welcoming space for participation.

Tips for facilitators who speak English comfortably

• Use clear, accessible language. Avoid overly complex words, idioms or jokes that may not translate easily. Remember to slow down.
• If you absolutely need acronyms, explain what they mean when you do.
• Remind people that perfect English is not required to participate and that we come to the Festival to share ideas. Some participants will feel more at ease when you acknowledge that multiple languages are present, and English is just one tool, like any other, for connection.
• Gently encourage written participation. Some may prefer contributing via notes, pads or chats.
• Avoid correcting others. Let people express themselves as they are.
• Support the room. You can help others feel safe by modelling inclusive practices, like paraphrasing ideas when needed and signalling openness through gestures and tone.
• Some participants could benefit from a language buddy. Someone that can help them connect or explain certain terms when needed. This could be someone you connect with before the Festival. In some cases, some language buddies can emerge during sessions.

When English isn’t your main language

• Bring someone to support you. A co-facilitator can help with translations, explanations, or making sure your ideas are heard. Facilitators can also have language buddies.
• Prepare bi/multilingual materials. You can use keywords, slides or notes in both English and your preferred language.
• Focus on clarity, not perfection. Use the tools and expressions that feel most natural to you.
• Add a QR code in your slides that links to a chat group or note pad in another language.
• Encourage others to use their own languages. Even if your session is in English, you can say, for example:
  • This session will be in English, but I also speak Arabic. If that’s your language too, feel free to ask me a question in Arabic — I’ll do my best to translate for everyone, or we can chat after the session.
  • We’ll be sharing notes in Spanish too. If that’s your language, you’re welcome to follow along or ask for clarification.
  • I’m happy to connect after the session in Portuguese if you would like to do that.

Other tactics (for any speaker)

• Add a QR code to your slides linking to collaborative notes or chat groups in other languages.
• Encourage movement or visuals to support non-verbal expression.
• Be mindful when limiting device use. Some participants rely on autocorrect or digital notes to feel confident.
• If you want to include local expressions, prepare. You can explain them briefly or invite others to share similar concepts in their language.
• Invite people to connect in their own ways. Sometimes, a quiet message or a shared doc creates more connection than a big group conversation.

After the Festival

Stories to tell, threads to follow.

Leave traces in more than one language

The ideas of the sessions don’t have to end with the Festival. Facilitators can help continue their impact by documenting what happened and for whom it mattered.

Some options:

• Publishing a blogpost or short reflection in the languages of your choice. This could be done in collaboration with a participant. That person could be invited to write their own takeaway in their language too.
• Sharing a bilingual summary of the session’s key questions or findings.

Another option is to record a 2-minute voice note or video. Something informal, unpolished, personal… and multilingual.

• Facilitators can record themselves (or a participant) explaining the session in another language, or
• Ask someone to narrate a short recap, highlight or moment that stayed with them; or even
• Stitch together a multilingual audio postcard: one question, many answers.

What about AI? 🤖

Mozilla believes that technology should serve people, not the other way around. Our vision of a healthy internet includes open and responsible AI, where innovation goes hand in hand with privacy, choice and transparency.

That spirit applies here too: we encourage you to use AI tools as a bridge and as a tool to connect and include more voices, never as a shortcut that risks flattening the experience, consuming valuable resources or excluding those at the margins.

If you do use AI (especially GenAI)

• Prioritize human translators, connectors and editors if that is possible. The human voice does something machines can’t: build connection.
• Always, always, check and edit AI-generated translations with care:
  • If you’re translating to a language that is not yours, work as much as possible with someone else that is able to edit and add add personality to your text (remember that this could be someone you meet at a facilitator’s call, if you are not sure who to ask).
• Avoid using these tools when you’re too tired; if you do, you probably won’t be able to see flat or repetitive structures or empty style figures that could make the text feel “empty”. Define your own structure as much as possible. Create subtitles or sections that reflect your priorities, and not the AI’s default structure.
• When possible, work with a model: use a reference of style and structure. If it’s your own, or someone you’re working with, even better. You can “feed” the machine with a text written for another project, for example.
• Add a note at the end of the material indicating that you used an AI assistant, and if it is not too complicated, mention how.

Keep on experimenting with language inclusion

Opening our spaces to more language is not a fixed strategy, just like these guidelines. To keep them evolving and becoming richer and more relevant, we encourage you to use them, appropriate them, add ideas to them and correct them.

If you can, let us know your feedback by emailing seher@mozillafoundation.org. You can tell us, for example:

• What worked better than expected?
• What felt awkward, but still worth doing?
• Who did you reach — and who was still missing?