Winifred Likhayo
Principal, Wynton House Of Music
Bold Question: What if music education was accessible to everyone especially the most marginalized communities to support their mental health and employability?
Path to Metis: Winifred is a passionate and enthusiastic music educator with over 20 years of experience. A B.ED Arts graduate from Kenyatta University with also a DIP. ABRSM in performance, she’s passionate about developing musical skills in people of all ages but strongly gravitating towards children and those from humble backgrounds.
Ever since she was a young girl, Winifred had a passion to teach others and teachers would often call her out to explain difficult concepts to her colleagues in class. She always knew deep down that she would be a teacher but never envisioned music as being the vehicle that would propel her dream to the highest level.
Through an aunt who bought her and her siblings, kids praise cassettes and a small keyboard, her love affair with music started at age 13. She taught herself how to sing by aping the kids in the cassettes and playing the keyboard.
She was one of the first students to be mentored as a piano accompanist for her colleagues in High school and as soon as she finished high school she was employed by KMF to be an official accompanist starting to earn a living at an early age. Having come from a humble background, this enabled her to pay for her university education with very little contribution from her parents and HELB.
The positive impact of music in her life fueled her passion to start Wynton House of Music to empower others especially those from humble backgrounds.
To this end, Wynton house of music has produced many musicians and music educators of repute who are earning a living through music. She’s headed several music departments in schools like Peponi Secondary, Nairobi Academy, Koinonia Education center and she’s currently at School of the Nations. She hopes to see to it that all Kenyan children in public schools, especially those from marginalized communities, access high standards of music education with properly set up music departments that have a variety of instruments both Western and Traditional and specialized teachers. To this end, she’s looking to engage various stakeholders that can provide access to funding to actualize her dream.
Winifred can be found on all social media platforms including YouTube as Winnie muriithi and winnie the music educator.
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