Paola Martinez
Lori Connell
Beauty Instructor/Personal Skills Instructor
Jensy Paola Espinal Martinez graduated from Mi Esperanza’s beauty school in 2009 and started a beauty salon in a small section of her house. Throughout 2010 and 2011, Paola grew her salon business and achieved every goal she set out to accomplish regarding her salon, including legally naming it PAO PAO (Pow Pow). She also agreed to offer her salon as a location for Mi Esperanza students to fulfill their internships.
In February 2012, Paola joined the Mi Esperanza staff as our beauty school instructor, teaching a morning and an afternoon class three times a week. Her salon is doing amazingly well, and she schedules the Mi Esperanza classes around her salon hours. Additionally, she was able to buy a car using a micro-loan from Mi Esperanza so that she could move more effectively between her two jobs and can travel to her client’s homes with her salon business. In 2022 Paola bought an apartment in Tegucigalpa. Paola is a great addition to the Mi Esperanza family because her story helps Mi Esperanza students see that the education and training Mi Esperanza provides, combined with hard work, results in hope, empowerment, opportunity, and success.