The broad objective of the Sesan and Srepok Community Based Research (CBR) program is for communities to gain a basin wide view of their situation and feel empowered to use their knowledge for advocacy purposes and to protect areas that need conservation, in order to better advocate to secure their livelihoods and to protect their natural resources.

The CBR program is a collaborative research approach which is designed to promote participation of local communities, representatives of organizations, local authorities, and partners in all aspects of the research process in order to improve the people’s well-being through taking action, co-learning, and reciprocal transfer of expertise by all research partners.  This approach involves maintaining a shared decision-making power and mutual ownership of the processes and the research’s final report.

The overall objective of the CBR program for 2010/ 2011, as decided by local communities, was to undertake a research topic documenting the history of riverside villages currently threatened by hydropower development process proposed for the Sesan and Srepok Rivers.  In addition to this, the project had the following specific objectives:

1. To build capacity of community research team members in research methodology and computer skills.
2. To empower communities to feel ownership of their research and increase basic knowledge by encouraging them to better manage their natural resources
3. To encourage communities to voice their concerns and demands by using the result of their research
4. To produce and disseminate a report documenting the history of villages in Lumphat, Kon Mom, and Veun Sai districts.