Sol Rodriguez Maiztegui is the creator of ‘El Club de la Porota’, a communication and advocacy project that works to show the realities of older people’s lives with the aim of combatting ageism. The objective is to make audiences more aware of how we are culturally affected by ageist views and to create a space where positive models of ageing can be found. Sol Rodriguez Maiztegui has worked to disseminate the products of El Club de la Porota through both digital and traditional media channels: for six years the project has held a full page in the newsletter Hoy Día Córdoba which has a daily circulation of over 15,000 copies, and the same content is reproduced via social media. The topics addressed are always based on a gerontological perspective based on a rights-based approach (as established by the Inter-American Convention for the Protection of the Human Rights of Older Persons) as well as a gender perspective.
Another objective of El Club de la Porota is to be a free space for access to multimedia gerontological material that can be used for pedagogical and teaching purposes. For example, for World Elder Abuse Awareness Day on 15 June, Sol Rodriguez Maiztegui produced an audiovisual clip on the abuse of older people for the media. The video eventually won the "Education in Focus" award of the Faculty of Education of the Catholic University. El Club de la Porota was also one of the mentoring projects chosen by the ANDÉN programme of the Universidad Tecnológica Nacional Regional Córdoba (UTN). Being an ANDÉN entrepreneur allowed Sol Rodriguez Maiztegui to connect with other people, learn about innovative projects and have the support of the UTN for her activities carried out through El Club de la Porota. Through this visibility, Sol Rodriguez Maiztegui has made strategic alliances with other media outlets such as radio stations, digital media, and magazines that allows greater dissemination of narratives and messages that outline the empowering nature of the ageing process.
Sol Rodriguez Maiztegui’s work demonstrates the importance of efforts that target dominant narratives and conceptualisations of ageing to undo ageism. In one sense, projects that work to improve the material conditions of older people’s lives will remain incomplete without being accompanied by work that aims to generate a broader cultural shift in the way we think, feel, and act towards age and ageing.