Lordina Mahama has been by her husband’s side through the thick and, a dynamic personality whether she is delivering speeches or hitting rural areas for her foundation projects.
Lordina Dramani Mahama is the First Lady of Ghana and wife of His Excellency President John Dramani Mahama. She is President of the Lordina Foundation and current President of the Organization of African First Ladies against HIV and AIDS (OAFLA). She is also the Premier Ambassador of the UNAIDS Global Plan on the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission.
Her Excellency Lordina Mahama was born on 6th March 1963 to Mr. and Mrs. Effah of blessed memory. The third born of four children, she had her early education in Tamale at the Tishigu Anglican primary school.
She then attended Bolga Girls and later Ghana Secondary School in Tamale where she completed her GCE education. She holds a certificate in catering from Flair Catering Services, Bachelor of Arts degree in Hospitality Management and a Masters in Governance and Leadership from the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA). She is currently studying a long distance LLM in Business Law/International Business Law programme at the De Montfort University, Leicester, United Kingdom.
Since Lordina Mahama, became the First Lady of the Ghana she has proved beyond reasonable doubt that she is a woman who has milk of human kindness flowing in her veins.
She is a woman that loves and cares for others. She does not allow the pride of being the wife of the Chief Executive of the country to becloud her sense of reasoning. Her human relations with other women and children in Ghana has shown that she does not see herself different from others.
In accordance with her religious belief and her personal principle, Lordina Mahama does not believe in class differences. She sees everybody as been equal before God. This perhaps account for why she is respected by all in Ghana.
As a demonstration for her love for the less privileged in society, she has visited a lot Orphanages/Less Privileged schools in the country and believes that the less privileged need to be catered for, and has always expressed her readiness to ensure their welfare to make them feel they are part of the society ,so she continues to reach out.
In her usual magnanimity to the needy, the wife of the President is a woman who believe that only her cannot sit in the office and solve the problems affecting women, children and the less privileged. She believes in team work by interacting with other sympathy visits to families that lost their beloved ones in Ghana.
Lordina has a deep passion for entrepreneurship, culinary arts and social work. She has worked over the years to promote the welfare of the underprivileged in Ghana. Her Excellency’s work includes orphanage support, medical outreach and start-up support for Hairdressers, Dressmakers, Beauticians and artisans across Ghana. She also helps provide shelter and vocational skills training for women accused of witchcraft who are ostracized by their communities.
She is an advocate of breast and cervical cancer and HIV prevention in Ghana and Africa. She has and continues to facilitate several free breast cancer and HIV screenings across the country.
The Lordina Foundation has also awarded a number of scholarships to needy and brilliant students to pursue further studies both home and abroad.
In recent times the First Lady opened the 7th African Conference on Sexual Health and Rights in Accra, during which she successfully launched two major continental social policy campaigns:
1. The Continental All-In Campaign to end Adolescent HIV
2. Ghana Ending Child Marriage in Africa
(Bringing together key actors from the AU and the United Nations including First Ladies of Africa)
The First Lady has a number of awards to her name and credit. These include:
• An Honorary Fellowship conferred on her by the West African College of Nursing
• Award of Doctorate Degree in Humane Letters by Fordham University, New York
• An award for campaign for cervical cancer, Maputo, Mozambique (2014 7th Stop Cervical Canner in Africa conference)
• African Development Recognition Awards, by Pleasures Magazine (December 21st 2014)
• Award for cervical cancer advocacy, Windhoek, Namibia at the (2015 8th Stop Cervical Canner in Africa conference)
• An honour from the State of New Jersey, and also given the key to the City of Newark for her dedicated service to humanity and her philanthropic works.
• Inducted into the Global Women Leaders Hall of Fame at the Africa-Middle East-Asia summit in Dubai.
• Global Inspiration Leadership Award at the Africa-Middle East-Asia summit in Dubai.
• Honoured by the State of Georgia and Maryland in the United State of America for her work in women empowerment and support for children in deprived communities in Ghana.
• She was also singled out for commendation by the United States state Department report for 2013, for standing up and supporting the alleged witches in the Gambaga witch camp in the Northern region of Ghana. • Enstooled Queen Mother (Sompahemaa) of Nkoranza Traditional Area in Brong Ahafo Region with a stool name, Nana Akosua Fremaa Ampomah Sika I.
• Enstooled as Development Queen in Bodom in the Brong Ahafo region of Ghana
• Enstooled as Development Queen in Ampoma in the Brong Ahafo region of Ghana
• Enstooled Development Queen in Anloga in Kumasi, Ashanti region of Ghana.
She is a Christian and a member of the Assemblies of God Church. She speaks English, Hausa, Dagbani and Twi. Her hobbies include cooking, giving marital advice, reading, and attending to children and the vulnerable in society.
Lordina has five children, four boys and a girl.
About the Foundation |Foundation
Since becoming the First Lady, Mrs Mahama has pursued a comprehensive initiative under the Lordina Foundation to address some of the problems facing women, children and the underprivileged in the society
The objectives of the foundation are to support orphanages, women and youth empowerment; to provide vocational skills training for the youth, and to provide scholarships to brilliant, needy and underprivileged children.
Her ambitious goal has seen her travelling the length and breadth of the country to have first hand information on how the activities of the foundation are impacting the lives of the people.
A number of orphanages have benefitted from the foundation’s initiatives in the form of infrastructure projects, donations of food items and clothing. They include the Andani Children’s Home, and the Tamale Children’s Home all in the Northern regional capital of Tamale.
The First Lady has also been consistent with her HIV and AIDS, breast, cervical and prostate cancer programmes.
Health activities
Mrs Mahama’s humanitarian work also has seen her doing a lot of work at the Gambaga Witches Camp.
After becoming the First Lady, she has paid a number of visits to the camp where she donated assorted food items, medication and clothing to the women who have been banished from their homes over allegations that they are witches.
Her health activities have now gone beyond the borders of the country as her election as President of Organisation of African First Ladies Against HIV and AIDS (OAFLA) has seen her doing a lot of work on the continent to bring hope to people living with HIV and prevent the spread of the disease.
In Ghana, Mrs Mahama and her foundation work with the Ghana AIDS Commission on the elimination of mother-to-child transmission.
She has successfully planted and nurtured the Ghana Chapter of OAFLA’s HIV and AIDS, breast and cervical cancer project in the Eastern, Brong Ahafo, Greater Accra, Central and Western regions.