Photo: Insel Mainau / Rainer M. Hohnhaus. The photograph is from an earlier Mentor event on Mainau.
Queen Silvia celebrated the Mentor anniversary at Lake Constance
The Mentor Stiftung Deutschland is ten years old, and Queen Silvia attended both the theatre premiere in Konstanz and the anniversary ceremony on Mainau Island. She founded the Mentor Federation together with the WHO in 1994.
Queen Silvia has spent two days at Lake Constance in Germany, where the Mentor Stiftung Deutschland marked its tenth anniversary. The Queen is 82, and she is herself the founder of the movement the foundation grew out of.
Young people on stage
On Wednesday evening she attended the premiere of the stage project "wir_jetzt_hier" at the Bodenseeforum in Konstanz. There young people from the city stood on stage and spoke about their hopes and fears, about longing and belonging, and about wanting to be seen and taken seriously. Their personal stories were woven together with music from the Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie Konstanz and the large choir of the Geschwister-Scholl-Schule.
Sitting with the Queen were Bettina Countess Bernadotte, chair of the foundation's board, and Flavia Zaka, who is married to the Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg, Cem Özdemir.
First Zukunftspreis awarded
On Thursday morning the celebration continued on Mainau Island with the official anniversary ceremony. There the Mentor-Zukunftspreis was awarded for the first time, with Queen Silvia presenting it and giving a speech. Neo Klingl, who won The Voice Kids in 2025, provided the music.
From the WHO in 1994 to Mainau in 2016
Queen Silvia founded the international Mentor Federation in Stockholm in 1994, together with the World Health Organization. The work is about strengthening young people's own development and helping them through the transition to adult life.
The German branch came in 2016, on the initiative of Bettina Countess Bernadotte, and is based on Mainau. "Precisely at the tenth anniversary it is a special sign that we turn our gaze together to the situation of young people", she said beforehand. The foundation's Matthias Ehret put it this way: "We can all be mentors in our dealings with young people."
Family ties to the island
Mainau has been in the hands of the Bernadotte family since the 1930s. Count Lennart Bernadotte, a grandson of the Swedish King Gustaf V, built the island into the flower paradise it is known as today. He lost his place in the Swedish line of succession when he married a commoner in 1932. The island is run today by his children, Björn and Bettina.
"It is a particular pleasure and honour for us to welcome Queen Silvia to Mainau again, after her visits in 2019 and 2023", said Björn Count Bernadotte.
The Queen has German roots of her own. She was born in Heidelberg in 1943, to a German father and a Brazilian mother.