Around 50 People attended a vigil at the University of Windsor for the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women Thursday night.
The university's Women's Engineering Club and Women's Centre honoured the 14 women killed in1989's L'Ecole Polytechnique massacre in Montreal.
Fourteen women from the university's engineering program read a statement of remembrance for each of the victims before placing a rose on the Memorial of Hope in the centre of campus — they also honoured Windsor Nurse Lori Dupont, she was murdered at Hotel Dieu Grace Hospital in 2005.
Woman's Centre Coordinator Micaela Nimmo tells AM800 News a younger generation of student may not remember the shooting, but many who learn more about the events in 1989 find a way to relate to the damage it caused in the community.
"They hear about this event for the first time and they understand the significance of it, then they can sort of re-mourn what happened," she says. "It's not something that's over, it's something people are still learning about and people every year are still finding ways to take action and get involved."
The fourth year Women's and Gender Studies student says the day is a way to, "centre the perspective and keep the focus, to raise awareness and to create a space where people feel comfortable talking about these things."
This year's vigil had speakers on several issues including violence against indigenous women, and missing indigenous woman, she added.
Parliament created the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women in response to the massacre back in 1991 — most of the women were engineering students.