The International Council for Cultural Centers (2008) is a world-wide civil society and volunteer-run initiative based in Bulgaria as an NGO with international membership and currently is the biggest organization uniting community cultural centers from 56 countries. The organization involves in its local activities many volunteers of all ages and promotes active participation by various civic groups to help create more colorful, creative, peaceful and ultimately happier communities around the world.

I3C includes the global Bread Houses Network (BHN) which creates and unites centers for community-building, creativity, and social entrepreneurship with the mission to inspire individuals and communities around the world to discover and develop their creative potential and cooperate across all ages, professions, gender, special needs, and ethnic backgrounds through collective bread-making and accompanying art forms.

The Bread Houses are physical locations established as well as educational and community-building programs run by people whom are trained to host in various other locations (community centers, schools, churches, etc.) with series of events and festivals. They run as community cultural centers and/or social enterprises-bakeries that train and employ disadvantaged people while also serving as a social-cultural center. Currently, the network unites 8 Bread Houses in Bulgaria and trained people and organizations in 19 countries on 5 continents.

The network strives to empower the people to connect with each other and find hope and solutions to their difficulties. In an increasingly globalized world with impersonal technology, BHN offers not a high-tech but a “high- touch” solution for person-to-person contact and dialogue via the universally accessible medium of bread.