The baseline study was conducted at a unique point of transition. ChildFund India had been already working since 2004 with the DISHA Children‘s Project and was on the verge of expanding its activities. This study therefore was created to give an overview of the then existing project area and also that of the conceived new project area. Since interventions had already been in operation in parts of the study areas the assessment was designed for the existing project in a treatment-control method. This strategic approach allowed to get information to project the improvement in lifestyle of beneficiaries of the project activities and non-beneficiaries then. The adoption of an evaluation methodology based on cross-sectional comparison instead of longitudinal one was deemed appropriate for a long-term livelihood project in a direly impoverished area, where substantial quantifiable improvement takes a long time to show.