YXK was founded at a conference of 75 students from 16 German universities and colleges on 12–13 Dezember 1991 at the
Ruhr University Bochum. It annually awards the
Hüseyin Çelebi Prize for Kurdish literature and holds annual Kurdish film festivals in
Hamburg and
Cologne. The biannual student magazine "Ronahî", named after the
nom de guerre of German PKK militant
Andrea Wolf, discusses the political situation of Kurds in both Germany and the four parts of Kurdistan, mainly
Turkish Kurdistan and
Rojava. The organization is in good standing with oppositional Turkish diaspora organizations. Together with the Alevi community (
Alevitische Gemeinde Deutschland) and Turkish socialist DIDF, YXK co-organized the May 2014 mass protests in Cologne, where some 50.000 protesters gathered to protest against Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (). In a joint fundraising campaign ''
YXK and German anticapitalist organization Interventionistische Linke'' (IL), collected some 100.000 Euro to support Syrian Kurdish
People's Protection Units (YPG). ==References==