Belonging
A team and environment in which young people could be seen and supported.
Sport · Media · Mentorship · Human potential
Potential deserves more than encouragement.
It deserves a pathway.
For Muneera, success has never ended with the final whistle or the final cut. What matters is what people can do, imagine and become because they were part of the experience.
≈80%of participating FHS Academy players progressed to provincial level — Muneera’s estimate
2practical pathways: sport and media
U15 + U17Western Province junior ladies’ six-down teams coached
Where it began
Athlete → Captain → Co-founder → Coach
Before she built pathways for others, she experienced what one could change.
Touch rugby gave Muneera an early education in discipline, resilience, accountability and collective ambition.
She played for many years, captained her club and provincial team, and earned sporting honours across three consecutive years, including Highest Scorer, Player of the Year and Sportswoman of the Year. As a junior, she was selected for the senior mixed provincial team. It showed her what can happen when talent is recognised early and challenged properly.
The instinct to open doors began even earlier. Her mother, filmmaker and educator Zulfah Otto Sallies, welcomed young artists into the family home, shared equipment and knowledge, and helped emerging talent find its footing. Muneera carried that example into sport, media and mentorship.
That experience did not remain a personal achievement. It became the spark for something built to outlast it.
FHS Academy · Co-founded with Junaid Sallies
Sport was the door.
Confidence was the destination.
Muneera co-founded FHS Academy with her brother, Junaid, and served as Ladies Head Coach. Sport and media gave young women and boys structure, belonging and a visible route towards bigger possibilities.
The point was never participation alone. Young people were expected to arrive, learn, practise, take responsibility and see themselves differently through the process.
Discipline
Training, preparation and standards that turned intention into repeatable behaviour.
Confidence
Responsibility, performance and communication that strengthened personal agency.
Progression
A credible pathway into provincial sport and broader opportunity.
≈80%
of participating players progressed to provincial level, Muneera estimates. Her approach combined clear expectations, regular practice and support for each player.
Leadership beyond the academy
From building a community programme to coaching at provincial level.
Muneera went on to coach the Western Province junior ladies’ U15 and U17 six-down touch rugby teams.
The setting changed; the leadership principles did not. Read the room. Establish the standard. Give people clarity. Make preparation visible. Hold the individual and the team in the same frame.
She carries those lessons from the field to the production floor, the development room and the executive table.
Ombura · Namibia
Training she created.
Mentorship to delivery.
For Ombura in Namibia, Muneera created and delivered training in technical directing, directing actors and scriptwriting. She also mentored the filmmakers, their stories and their films from development through production, post-production and final delivery.
Her approach connected the training to the films being made. Filmmakers could develop their scripts and directing practice with guidance that continued on the journey to a finished film.
The programme’s 2024 slate comprised six feature films, one documentary and one lifestyle series, creating opportunities for Namibian filmmakers to tell local stories.
Read the full Ombura case study ↗
WritePrepareDirectEditDeliver
Writing mentorship / Longhope TV Writing
Develop the writer.
Open the next professional door.
From screenplay development to industry experience.
Through the Jakes Gerwel Foundation and M-Net Channels’ Longhope TV Writing programme, Muneera joined fellow mentors in supporting emerging television writers at Paulet House.
The Foundation’s account of the 2024 cohort records four writers progressing from the residency to offers of three-month internships at production companies including Tshedza Pictures, The Bomb Shelter and Homebrew.
Read the Foundation’s account ↗A continuing contribution.
The Foundation also named Muneera among the 2025 programme’s mentors, contributing remotely alongside the mentoring team. Her role brings working screen experience into the development of new television voices.
Explore the 2025 programme ↗