“APART from studying about Islam, I was taught farming at this pesantren. Now I am making natural fertilizer from straws,” Ruhimat, a student at Ath Thaariq, said seven years ago in front of a video camera.

When he first came to the pesantren, or Islamic boarding school, six years ago, Father Gregorius Soetomo SJ saw other students—called santri—doing their activity just like Ruhimat. At the Ath Thaariq Ecology Pesantren,