MONTREAL -- On Dec. 6, 1989, a man shot dead 14 women--most of them engineering students.

On Thursday, engineering student Edith Ducharme received a $30,000 scholarship in their memory.

"I think it helps us, women, to build solidarity between us, I believe in feminine solidarity, so I think the friendships that are forged together are special since we are not that many," she said.

Almost 30 per cent of Polytechnique's graduates are women, compared to the average of 20 per cent for engineering students in the rest of Canada.

Ducharme received her award on the same day Montreal amended a plaque marking the massacre to include the killer's antifeminist contract.

"The killer was after feminists, so I think he just did a very easy thing. He just went inside a place where there were tons of women, in a place where he felt it was for men to be--not for women, and he killed them. So for this, it was important to say women but also feminists," said Mayor Valerie Plante.