With more than 200 projects over the years, she provided humanitarian aide for the benefit of victims of wars and natural disasters, covering food, medicine, agricultural equipment, water-filtration systems, and school supplies.

[2][4] Typically she simply pretended to be picnicking with friends in the mountains, but at times disguised herself as a nun, hiding uniforms for the refugees in her backpack to help them gain asylum.

[2] Between 1966 and 1967, Vecchi visited the Soviet Union and encouraged the development of cultural exchange relationships as a means to bridge the misunderstandings of Cold War polarization.

[1] The book featured images of people going about their daily lives and drew on Polish writers for accounts of the historical and cultural development of the country.

[1][13] As with her other works, Vecchi sought to present cultural heritage, such as artworks and folklore, juxtaposed with modern technology and the political environment, to create a broad understanding of the country.

She countered her critics by explaining that she paid for the renovations to the Prime Minister's residence and that as a couple, she and Amintore had always combined politics with cultural and humanitarian sensitivities.

While she enjoyed her high society engagements, Fanfani was equally passionate about helping others,[15] and often hosted benefit concerts to raise funds for her relief projects.

[16][17] In 1978, she brought medicines, school supplies and goods to Egypt and Sudan and the following year delivered similar aid packages to Indochinese refugees living in the Cebu Islands in the Philippines.

[14] When martial law was imposed in Poland in 1981 to end the Solidarity movement's general strike against working and social conditions,[18] Fanfani returned to the country bringing medical supplies and food.

[14] In 1985, she formed a foundation Sempre Insieme per la Pace (Always Together For Peace) to expand her humanitarian efforts,[21] funding the organization by selling all of her personal jewelry with the exception of her wedding ring.

[15] She chartered a peace ship in conjunction with the Red Cross, which circumnavigated the African continent bringing food and medicines to Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Guinea Bissau, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo and Uganda.

When the ship arrived back in Tunis in October, it was loaded with additional supplies to take medicine, clothing, and prefabricated buildings to the victims of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake.

[26] She hosted a dinner for the 13th G7 summit leaders and was responsible for entertaining the attending wives, Mila Mulroney of Canada, Nancy Reagan of the United States, and Lieve Verschroeven of Belgium, taking them shopping, sightseeing, and island hopping.

Separate convoys were arranged to deliver another 80 tons of relief supplies to children who had survived the Chernobyl disaster and victims of the Aral Sea drought and famine.

[32] When the Bosnian War broke out in 1992, Fanfani took educational materials and medicines to Zagreb and goods to Belgrade to assist refugees in Croatia and Serbia and flew into Sarajevo to bring additional supplies.

The following year, she broke the Serbian blockade of Sarajevo and returned with clothing, medicine, and food, simultaneously sending similar aid packages and infant supplies to hospitals in Croatia and Slovenia.

[33] She stepped down as president of the Italian Red Cross in 1994 and that year sent a third round of relief aid to Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia, before turning her attention to the Rwandan genocide.

She arranged the evacuation of fifty-two orphans from the orphanage run by Amelia Barbieri in Muhura, a village northeast of Kigali to a temporary location in Uganda.

Over the next several months, she organized similar aid deliveries to refugee camps in the African Great Lakes region as well as to Kigali and Goma, Zaire.

[35] When terrorists occupied and killed students during the Chechen separatist conflicts in Beslan, in the North Caucasus region of Russia in 2004, Fanfani was one of the first to organize relief for the area.

[4] Although sometimes criticized early in her marriage to Amintore Fanfani for using his political position to further her causes, by the time of his death, she was widely reported as the "first true first lady of the Italian Republic".