ABOUT US
We cultivate experiences of encounter that connect people, cultures and territories, helping them grow, learn and inspire positive change in their communities.
Our story
What guides us
We believe rural communities should not have to choose between being deeply connected to their territory and being connected to the wider world.
We want to contribute to rural communities that are alive, open and connected: places where people can participate, create, learn from one another and access opportunities beyond their immediate surroundings.
For us, international cooperation is not about bringing Europe to rural communities from the outside. It is about creating genuine connections in both directions — enabling people from our territory to discover other realities while inviting people, ideas and experiences from elsewhere to become part of ours.
Connecting the rural with the world.
Cultivating encounters between people, cultures and territories
We believe that meaningful encounters can change the way people see themselves, others and the places where they live.
That is why we create and support experiences that bring people together across cultures, generations and territories — using culture, creativity, volunteering and international cooperation as tools for learning, participation and community building.
Our work is rooted in rural communities, but open to the world. We want to help connect places like Tierra Estella with people, ideas and opportunities from across Europe, while creating meaningful connections between those who live here and those who arrive.
Our mission
Invernadero Cultural is a cultural association based in rural Navarra, in northern Spain.
Invernadero Cultural did not begin with the creation of the association. Its roots go back much further.
Our founders first became involved in European cooperation through the former European Voluntary Service, experiencing international volunteering themselves before later working for a cultural organisation in Poland.
There, they supported international volunteers, coordinated cultural activities, contributed to an international theatre festival and worked every day with people from different countries and backgrounds.
Those years shaped the way we understand cultural and international projects today. We discovered that their greatest value was not simply the activities themselves, but the relationships, learning and unexpected connections that grew around them.
Later, we started developing our own initiatives in Ukraine, including a European youth exchange involving organisations from five countries. The pandemic prevented some of those projects from taking place, but the idea behind them remained.
After returning to Spain, we created Invernadero Cultural and began organising cultural activities and projects in Navarra.
Today, after a period of lower activity, we are entering a new stage.
We are rebuilding Invernadero Cultural from our home in rural Navarra, bringing together what we have learned through international volunteering, culture and community work with a renewed commitment to the territory where we now live.
Our aim is not to become a large organisation or to organise activities simply for the sake of being active.
We want to build meaningful projects, strong relationships and long-term collaborations — locally and across Europe.
