After her return to Geneva van Berchem joined the Central Agency for Prisoners of War of the ICRC, the successor of the IPWA. which was based on the 1929 Geneva Convention. In 1940/41, she played a key role in the creation of a service dedicated to handle the cases of the many POWs from the French colonies, who could thus receive family news and parcels. To master the challenges from this task, she recruited a team of specialists who had lived in the colonies.
