Providing safe spaces for medical workers

Housing medical workers has been one of the major challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wayne Godwin, Head of Hotel Advisory, Sub-Saharan Africa at JLL, has been helping to provide suitable accommodation in South Africa. Teaming up with Ubuntu Beds – an initiative that sources hotels for frontline medical workers to ease their commute and protect their families – Wayne and his colleagues helped compile a detailed list of hotels, including their proximity to major hospitals dealing with coronavirus patients.

“We came across the initiative and thought that as a non-profit organization they would have limited resources at a time where we had some additional capacity in our team,” Wayne says. “Given our familiarity with the hotel sector in South Africa, we knew that we would be able to identify hotels that were more strategic than others to this cause, and then leverage our relationship with many of their owners and operators in facilitating these introductions.”

So far, the venture has helped house nearly 250 workers, as well as supporting the hotels unable to operate due to lockdown.

“It has been great to be part of a team of corporates rallying to this cause, and using our skills on a pro-bono basis to help in a small way.”