Bernhard, Lucia

Lucia Bernhard is a physiotherapist graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Physiotherapy at the University of Applied Science of Southern Switzerland in 2010 and a master’s in International Cooperation and Development at the Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia in 2012. She has been working for the last 9 years in the humanitarian field with different organizations in various contexts such as: physiotherapist coordinator in Sudan for 2 years working in the pediatric field, Rehabilitation technical advisor in Iraq and Syria after the Islamic State crisis which created displacement of thousands of Iraqi and Syrian people. Since joining the ICRC in 2016, she has been working in acute or protracted conflicts contexts as Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Gaza and currently covering Near and Middle East countries as a regional Physiotherapist Advisor with focus on treatment of war wounded people in hospital settings. She engaged in collaboration with different international and global working groups for the development of online courses with Physiopedia (Cerebral Palsy) Reference manuals (Early rehabilitation in Conflicts and Disasters) and WHO working groups (Package of intervention in Rehabilitation). The consequence of traumatic events on people have become her main field of interest in the last years.