United by Hope: Live from the World Humanist Congress 2026 Part 2

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Part two of our dispatches from the World Humanist Congress 2026 in Ottawa. On the second and final day, James Hodgson caught up with more attendees, from the humanist chaplains bringing secular pastoral care into the Canadian Armed Forces, to the local Ottawa organisers who hosted the event, an Icelandic politician on humanist values in turbulent times, and two returning Humanism Now guests reflecting on the movement's past and future.

Across every conversation the theme of the Congress, humanism as resistance, keeps surfacing: resisting the erosion of truth, the normalisation of dehumanising rhetoric, and the complacency that assumes rights won can never be lost.

"It just takes one person in a room to change a whole conversation and change the course of history." — Roslyn Mould

Featured in this episode

Silvana Morales-Boiardi, humanist chaplain with Humanist Canada, training as a military humanist chaplain in the Canadian Armed Forces

Buela Nokutubo, member of Humanist Ottawa

Dr Richard Thain, Humanist Ottawa, long-time humanist and recipient of a service award at the Congress

Arndís Anna Kristínardóttir Gunnarsdóttir, President of Siðmennt (the Icelandic Humanist Association) and former member of Iceland's parliament

Chris Cameron, historian and author, representing the Association of Black Humanists

Roslyn Mould, of Accra Atheists and outgoing Vice President of Humanists International

Highlights