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,” shared Victim Services Toronto 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 U.K. 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.
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. Directed by Jackson Tisi via production company Fela, the films, including this :60, 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 “Safe Spaces” 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.
72andSunny Toronto creative director Kate Thorneloe said, “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.
