Rebecca Akufo-Addo

Rebecca Naa Okaikor Akufo-Addo (née Griffiths-Randolph; born 12 March 1951) is a Ghanaian public figure and the current first lady of Ghana

as the wife of President Nana Akufo-Addo.

Rebecca Akufo-Addo is the daughter of Judge Jacob Hackenburg Griffiths-Randolph, who served as the Speaker of the Parliament of Ghana in the Third Republic, and Frances Phillipina Griffiths-Randolph (née Mann).

After graduating from Achimota Primary School and Wesley Grammar School, both in Accra, she furthered her education at the Government Secretarial School and became a secretary.

Akufo-Addo subsequently worked as a secretary at the Merchant Bank in Ghana and later relocated to United Kingdom and worked as a legal secretary for Clifford Chance/Ashurst Morris Crisp, multinational law firms in the United Kingdom.

As First Lady, she has been praised for advocating the fight of the disease Malaria in Ghana and has been recognized as a nutrition champion for fighting against malnutrition in children and adolescents, and outstanding contribution to women's health and efforts against infant mortality in Ghana and across Africa.

Rebecca Naa Okaikor Griffiths-Randolph was born on the 12 March 1951 as the daughter of the judge, Jacob Hackenburg Griffiths-Randolph who served as the Speaker of the Parliament of Ghana in Third Republic and Frances Phillipina Griffiths-Randolph (née Mann).

She attended Achimota Primary School and Wesley Grammar School, both in Accra.

Rebecca Akufo-Addo furthered her education at the Government Secretarial School where she qualified as a secretary.

She worked at the Merchant Bank in Ghana and later relocated to United Kingdom.

She then worked as a legal secretary for Clifford Chance/Ashurst Morris Crisp, multinational law firms in the United Kingdom.

In November 2016, she made a donation of bags of rice, cartons of milo, gallons of cooking oil, bags of sugar, boxes of noodles, toiletries, detergents, boxes of tooth paste and cartons of drinks to the Accra Psychiatric Hospital.

This was to help with personal hygiene of the inmates.

In 2017, she established the Rebecca Akufo-Addo foundation, a non-governmental organization with a mission to enhance efforts of the government among Ghanaian women and children.

In 2017 and 2020, she donated food items to Ga-Mashie and Tema Traditional Councils respectively to support in the celebration of their annual Homowo festival.

In 2017, she founded the Rebecca Akufo-Addo foundation, a non-governmental organization to enhance efforts of government amongst Ghanaian women and children.

In November 2017, the Rebecca foundation signed a deal with Licang District Experimental School in Qingdao, China.

This was for an exchange program that would each year enable ten students from both countries to visit the other.

This was a move would enhance academic, sports and cultural harmony between students of both countries.

In October 2018, The Rebecca Foundation rolled out the Learning to read, reading to learn project.

This was to instill a culture of learning in children to enhance literacy.

Some of the goals of the project were to build libraries across the country and introduce school and child friendly programs to enable children learn to read.

In November 2018, the Foundation launched the 'Because I want to be' project.

It provides a cushion for underprivileged girls in society and guarantees continuous education and skills training for female school dropouts.

In 2019, she started the "Zero Malaria Starts with Me" campaign to fight Malaria in Ghana and strongly backs the Pan-African ‘Zero Malaria Starts with Me’ movement, which calls for the removal of malaria across Africa.

Akufo-Addo is the nutrition champion in Ghana.

She raises awareness to fight against malnutrition, especially in children and adolescents.

In 2019, she called for a thoughtful national policy on nutrition education for school curricula, public education, promotion of healthy diets, and proper labeling of food products, which is geared towards improving nutritional habits of Ghanaians.

She charged The National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) to take a key role in coordinating and accelerating policies that supported healthy diets to ensure coherence with other actors in the food system.

In 2019, she launched a campaign to raise awareness on iron deficiency in Ghana as the country joined the world to observe World Food Day.

For her works on nutrition, Akufo-Addo was honoured by The African Leaders for Nutrition to acknowledge her work and commitment to sound nutrition and the welfare of mothers and babies.

She was given the 'Excellence in Empowering Women and Children Award' at the Africa Public Sector for her outstanding contribution to women's health and efforts against infant mortality in Ghana and across Africa in Rwanda.

In August 2020, Rebecca Akufo-Addo made a donation of $20,000 to help Emmanuel Apraku, a pencil artist, treat a liver disease he was battling.

In the same month of August 2020, she donated temperature guns to the Ghana Library Board to be shared to the libraries across the country.

This was to help curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic by checking the temperatures of people who came to use the libraries.

In September 2020, she donated some items to the University of Ghana Teaching Hospital.

The items included five beds sets, powdered soap, baby diapers, blankets, bed sheets, patient monitors, thermometer guns, 20 gallons of hand sanitizer, nose masks and delivery bowls.

Rebecca Akufo-Addo is an advocate for fighting the disease, Malaria, in Ghana.

Through the Infanta Malaria, of which she is patron and her foundation, the Rebecca Akufo-Addo foundation, Akuffo-Addo has been advocating for improved health outcomes for the vulnerable groups, who are mostly affected by malaria including the poor, pregnant women and children under five years old.

She is also a member of the National Malaria Control Programme and the Ghana Health Service which commemorates World Malaria Day.