Gala has been skating in the city for years, but she knows that lots of people feel whakamā about street skating because they don't think they're good enough yet.
"It’s a common thing for a lot of girls or non-binary people to feel like they have to be practising in their driveway until they're good enough to go to a skate park. I tell them; nah bro, if you skate past a little girl on the street and she sees you, she's gonna be like, ‘That’s awesome’.”
Gala started skating at a young age and started competing in high school. Travelling to comps meant bonding with skaters as they supported each other and strived to get better. These experiences helped Gala find “a different kind of whānau”.
“I met a lot of mates through skating who had come to Pōneke for university. We'd go get a kai, go to someone's flat, go out to a gig that night, then do the same thing the next day. Lifelong homies have come out of that."
Wozer skate magazine was born from this lifelong group – which includes a lot of women and queer friends. Realising what a good thing they had in their friend group, one of Gala’s mates started Wozer as a university project “which was kind of like a projection of: ‘Hey, look at this little pocket of the skate community. This is us’.”
Recognition of women and queer people in skateboarding has increased in Aotearoa over the past few years, and in Gala’s opinion, is growing really fast. Wozer is there to support the kaupapa; “It's really cool to observe that, and to broadcast it.”