RAMALLAH, West Bank — Twenty-two students at Al-Quds University in Abu Dis, bordering Jerusalem from the east, try to find the time between lectures to volunteer between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. at Sudfeh (Arabic for Serendipity), the first vegan cafeteria in Palestine, located on the university campus.

On Oct. 24, Al-Quds University and the Palestinian Animal League (PAL) opened Sudfeh, which provides meals without any animal products, to promote the values and ethics of animal welfare and encourage veganism among students.

The Youth for Change program — launched in March 2015 by PAL at Birzeit University, Bethlehem University and Al-Quds University — came up with the idea for the cafeteria. The main objective of the program is to provide students with the necessary qualifications to carry an ethical message of animal welfare and social responsibility. Those students would then teach their peers what they learned during the six-month program. Following this, each group of students would come up with a social initiative.

Sameh Erekat, a PAL member and supervisor at Sudfeh, told Al-Monitor that the vegan cafeteria was one of those initiatives presented by 14-year-old schoolgirls from al-Awael School in Ramallah.