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Former First Lady and wife of John Agyekum Kufuor, Theresa passes on at age 88

Former First Lady and wife of John Agyekum Kufuor, Theresa passes on at age 88.

According to a report by Asaase Radio, the ex-First Lady died earlier today, Sunday, October 1, 2023.

“Her husband, former President John Agyekum Kufuor was at home, when his wife of over 55 years died. Mrs Kufuor has not been well in recent years,” the report said

“Incidentally, President Nana Akufo-Addo had travelled to the mountains to pay a visit to the former President and her passing is said to have happened shortly before the President arrived.”

Theresa Kufuor (née Mensah; born 25 October 1935) is the former First Lady of Ghana and the wife of John Kufuor, the second President of the Fourth Republic of Ghana. She is a retired midwife and nurse.

Education
Kufuor began her schooling at the Catholic Convent, OLA, in Keta, Ghana’s Volta Region. She later moved to London to study as a Registered General Nurse at the Southern Hospital Group of Nursing. Edinburgh is a city in Scotland.

She became a State Certified Midwife with a Certificate in Premature Nursing after additional studies at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford and Paddington General Hospital in London.

Private life
After meeting at a Republic Day Anniversary Dance in London in 1961, Theresa married John Kufuor when he was 23 years old. In 1962, they married. J. Addo Kufuor, Nana Ama Gyamfi, Saah Kufuor, Agyekum Kufuor, and Owusu Afriyie Kufuor are her five children with former Ghanaian President John Kufuor. She has five children and eight grandchildren. She is a practising Roman Catholic.

Despite serving as Ghana’s first lady for eight years, from 2001 to 2009, she has kept a low profile in the political sphere. In 2007, she advocated for policy changes in the Government’s White Paper on Educational Reforms in order to implement UNESCO’s Free compulsory universal basic education (FCUBE) programme for kindergarten students.

She started the Mother and Child Community Development Foundation (MCCDF), a non-governmental organisation that works to reduce mother-to-child transmission in Ghana and Canada.

Honours
to October 25, Pope Benedict XVI bestowed the Papal Award of Knight Commander of St. Gregory the Great to her husband, President John Kufuor, in recognition of his committed devotion to humanity and the Catholic Church in general.[12] Theresa Kufuor received the Popel Award Dame of St Gregory the Great for her dedication to the condition of underprivileged children and their moms.