It’s not hard to see what makes Zuleika Barrios and Martha Miller a great pair. Both are confident, bright and articulate young women with shared interests in the arts and a taste for adventure. So when Martha was honored as The Mentoring Partnership of New York’s “Corporate Mentor of the Year,” it came as little surprise that the Boise, Idaho native’s first instinct was to publicly thank her mentee Zuleika, a junior at the School for Community Research and Learning in the Bronx.

When Zuleika was five years old, she arrived from Puerto Rico with her mother and five younger brothers. “My English was horrible! I barely spoke any English at all,” she says, adding that she learned quickly in school and with friends. Her mother still has trouble understanding English, so Zuleika helps her as well.

When the two met in the fall of 2006, Zuleika says, she was shy at first. But then again, that was one of the reasons she wanted a mentor in the first place. “I really like to meet new people, but I’m usually shy,” she says. “I wanted to learn about how to communicate well.”

Their first event together was a cook-off at Ernst and Young for all the mentor-mentee pairs which Miller, 23, likened to a junior high school dance. “Everyone was nervous, and nobody wanted to mingle. But we hit it off right away.”

Through their shared experiences, Martha introduced Zuleika to a world she hadn’t experienced and has helped to overcome her shyness. Most memorable was a trip that several of the mentors and mentees took to a dance studio in Manhattan, where the pairs learned to salsa. “I’m used to salsa dancing. In my culture we do it all the time,” Zuleika says. “So I felt like I was helping to teach Martha.”

Lately, Martha and Zuleika have been working on ways to balance the competing pressures of family and school. Zuleika’s mother is in cosmetology school, and since she is the oldest child, she often needs to babysit for her younger brothers. Martha is helping Zuleika come up with a plan for managing her time.

“When I was in high school, I used to get overwhelmed with deadlines and schedules,” says Martha. “So one of the things we need to do is figure out how to make a step-by-step plan.”

“Martha helps me a lot,” Zuleika chimes in.

Zuleika’s goal is to improve her grades, graduate high school and go to college to study medicine. None of these will be easy for her, but Martha’s support, encouragement and advice will help make it possible for Zuleika to achieve her dreams.