Victim Services Toronto (VST) has partnered with 72andSunny Toronto to expand its proven community-based safety initiative, Ask for Angela, through new partnerships and a multi-channel awareness campaign designed to meet people where they are and connect them to support when they need it most.
As part of this expansion, VST is introducing the out-of-home campaign alongside a new series of PSA films, working together to both increase awareness of the realities victims face and provide clear, accessible pathways to help across the city.
“In Toronto, police already record 17,000 to 19,000 intimate partner violence occurrences in the average year, with recent data showing a double‑digit year‑over‑year increase in reports despite chronic underreporting,” shares Victim Service Toronto Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Carly Kalish.
“There’s clearly an urgent need for Ask for Angela’s increased presence across Toronto, while also presenting a long-term, infrastructure-building opportunity to make pathways to help more consistently available, convenient, and approachable.”
To expand local pathways to safety and professional support, VST first introduced Ask for Angela in the GTA in fall 2023. The trauma-informed safety initiative – which originated in the UK in 2016 and celebrates its 10-year global anniversary this year – allows people experiencing gender-based violence or exploitation to discreetly signal for immediate support at partnering locations using the code phrase: “Is Angela here?”
The newly launched OOH campaign discreetly shares VST’s resources, disguising the Ask for Angela messaging into ads for makeup, skincare, and menstrual products.
Through its Loblaw Companies Limited partnership, the community-based program has already effectively embedded an accessible support option into 225 local, everyday retail spaces that victims of gender-based violence and exploitation may visit alone, including grocery stores and pharmacies. Currently, thousands of frontline staff at participating locations across the GTA are trained to recognize the Ask for Angela code phrase and follow its clear protocol to connect individuals with professional support services, with QR codes available for additional discretion and choice.
“We’re proud to have partnered on the local launch of Ask for Angela and have seen the positive impact of this transformative program in action across our stores the past two years,” says Loblaw Companies Limited Senior Vice-President Asset Protection Dean Henrico.
“This is just the beginning of what’s possible through ongoing community collaboration, and we’re eager to witness Ask for Angela’s success grow as more partners join in.”
The expansion of Ask for Angela represents a significant step in building a more connected and accessible support system across Toronto. By combining community partnerships, physical infrastructure, and a campaign designed to pair awareness with action, VST is evolving the initiative from a standalone program into a sustained, city-wide network designed to meet ongoing needs.
To complement the growth of Ask for Angela’s physical network, 72andSunny has also launched a series of PSA films for VST that bring to life the often unseen realities of individuals experiencing violence. The films focus on internal moments, what people may be thinking or rationalizing in situations where they feel unsafe, helping to challenge common misconceptions around victimhood and make those experiences more visible and understood.
Together with the out-of-home campaign, the PSA series is designed to move beyond awareness alone, ensuring that individuals who recognize themselves in these moments also have a clear and immediate pathway to support through Ask for Angela.
“This next phase is about making support more visible, more accessible, and more embedded in the everyday places people already go,” explains Kalish. “By pairing awareness with clear pathways to help, we’re working to ensure that no one has to navigate these moments alone.”
Building on Ask for Angela‘s Momentum
With funding from the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services through Ontario’s Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence, VST is proud to be accelerating its proven, scalable model for Ask for Angela this year, strategically transforming a retail pilot into a lasting city-wide safety framework that delivers on the non-profit’s continued promise of leaving No Victim Alone.
- New, strategic local partnerships across retail, hospitality, healthcare, transit, emergency response, and tourism will provide program training to 8,000 additional frontline staff and volunteers, expanding direct pathways to crisis support in everyday spaces across Toronto. This growing ecosystem includes partners such as:
- CN Tower
- Courtyard Toronto Downtown Marriott
- Delta Hotels by Marriott Toronto Airport & Conference Centre
- Hilton Toronto
- Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel
- Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
- The PrEP Clinic / The Ontario Prevention Clinic +pharmacy
- Toronto Paramedic Services
- VST’s first-ever Ask for Angela OOH campaign, inspired by the discreetness of the initiative, will disguise posters as traditional product advertisements, leveraging QR codes and a new dedicated website to increase program accessibility in high-traffic, public-facing spaces such as transit hubs, while delivering 64 million brand impressions
- The launch of VST’s mobile-first, interactive program partner map will offer a permanent safety infrastructure for victims experiencing gender-based violence to conveniently access pathways to support. The site allows users to locate nearby Ask for Angela sites or connect directly with VST, and it will be continuously updated with new, quality-assured sites as they join the program, making it easier to source help across all areas of the city
Alongside these discreet out-of-home placements, the PSA films extend the campaign’s reach across digital and broadcast channels, creating a connected system pairing emotional storytelling with accessibility.
72andSunny Toronto Creative Director Kate Thorneloe added: “This campaign was designed as a system; one part helping people recognize themselves in situations they may not always name, and the other giving them a simple, immediate way to act. The PSA films create that emotional understanding, while Ask for Angela provides a clear path to support in everyday environments. Together, they’re meant to meet people not just where they are physically, but where they are mentally and emotionally, as well.”
The campaign will roll out across social, cinema, and donated broadcast media, with out-of-home executions installed in high-traffic locations across the city.
