Little of information in English during water crisis

– The university should have sent out an extra e-mail in English, says Ricardo Duque, President of the International Students’ Union (ISU) in Oslo.

He is not pleased with the information that was provided for the English-speaking students about the poor water quality. The university sent out e-mails to students and staff on Wednesday morning, informing them about the situation both in Norwegian and in English. However, Duque feels that this was far from enough.

– A lot of international students does not read e-mails where there is information in Norwegian, and for this reason important information should be distributed in separate e-mails, he complains.

ISU took it upon themselves to send out information on the situation through e-mails to their members, for instance telling them where they could get water from. Nevertheless, Duque believes that these e-mails only reach 35 to 40 per cent of the international students, and says that the university should have sent out the information by post.

– Not everyone has internet access where they live, and no one knew how long the situation would last, he points out.

Jorulf Brøvig Silde, Supervisor at the Section for Health, Environment and Safety at the University of Oslo, was the one who sent out the information on Wednesday morning. He says that he considered one e-mail to be sufficient since he included the information in English as well as in Norwegian. But he says that he is very sorry if this meant that a lot of people were unaware of the situation.

– We will take into account that someone felt our information to be insufficient, he admits.