Halina Kaufman – The Jeweller who continues to shine

There is no stopping national gold medallist (2010) and BBM Skilled Futures Program Recipient (2011), Halina Kaufman, a talented jeweller from Tasmania who now has her sights set on attaining specialised training overseas which she can bring back to the jewellery industry in Australia.

Since returning home from the UK and the leadership program offered through the BBM Skilled Futures Program Scholarship in 2011, Halina has continued to build upon her skills and put herself through new challenges, with the goal of being the best jeweller she can be.

Recently Halina applied for the Manufacturing Skills Australia International Innovation Fellowship through the International Specialised Skills Institute and was selected to progress to the interview stage. Whilst not being awarded the fellowship, the panel were so impressed with Halina’s project they awarded her a grant of $5000 to go towards the costs involved in her training and also inducted her as a fellow of the International Specialised Skills Institute.

We asked Halina to tell us about her plans for training overseas and she shared her inspirational goals with us: “The training I will be going to do is in hand engraving using the gravermax and microscopes. I will be leaving on the 10th June to start my intensive two week private tuition with Sam Alfano, a Master Hand Engraver, who is based in Louisiana, USA. Sam tailor’s his courses to suit his students as he specialises in different areas of engraving including gun engraving and jewellery engraving.

Following my training with Sam, I will then fly to Utrecht in the Netherlands to train with Jura of Jura Jewelery, where I will be doing micro-pave diamond setting. This is an intense one week course of advanced micro-pave where I will learn the basics for this style of setting.

Jura offers another one week course where he will expand on those skills, I plan to go back and do this advanced course in the future.

I hope to build upon the skills I learn overseas through practice and then one day I hope to be able to provide this type of training in Australia as it currently not offered. This type of training will probably be offered as one week blocks of private instruction or perhaps very small classes.”

WorldSkills Australia wishes Halina the best of luck in her overseas adventures and are looking forward to her updates upon her return.