Father Harry Miller S.J. left Louisiana in 1948 for Batticaloa. The Jesuit priest talks about the development of the mission, his work in documenting the disappearances during the 1990s, and explains why Batticaloa is the only home he knows.

Former parliamentarian and retired principal of Methodist Central, Prince Casinader is also a correspondent. He talks about his love for the singing fish of Batticaloa and the conflict between Muslim and Tamil communities.

Mustaffa Mohamed Atham Bawa has worked for the family business since he left school at 10. He talks about the changes to working as a shopkeeper the terrible incidents of violence he has witnessed and how Batticaloan Muslim and Tamil communities have tried to move on together.

Seventy-five year old Batticaloan Annaviyar Arasaratnam is a koothu master. Hailing from Karavetti, he knows over twenty different koothus. He talks about the history and different styles of this ancient art form and his struggle to keep this traditional Tamil theatre alive today.

With Sri Lankan, Portuguese and French roots, Sister Irene Bartelöt is well placed to talk about the diversity of Batticaloa. She talks about the time when people didn’t ask what ethnicity or nationality you were. “People just mixed up”, she said, underscoring the concept on which the I Am project is based. She remembers the time when she felt the call of God, when she served as a nurse during the war and what Batticaloans can teach us about healing.

Mrs Kandiah had never even been to England but through the words of the favourite nature poets, she could immerse herself in the meadows and hills of the English countryside, without leaving her home in Batticaloa.

The 92 year old Margaret Outschoorn is the oldest member of the Portuguese Burgher community in Batticaloa. Displaced from the Dutch Bar after the 2004 tsunami, she now lives in a new settlement developed especially for the community. She talks about displacement and loss of her unique culture and how she still misses her old life in the Dutch Bar.

The 71 year old Seenithamby is still throwing his net on the Batticaloa lagoon. He talks about the changes to his way of life over the years, his father who taught him to fish, and the time he believes he first saw the ‘kadal kanni’, part of local folklore among Batticaloan fishermen.

Byron Unmani was an elder in the Veddah community of Vaharai. Displaced several times, they had to adapt to their new environment, and were now fishermen, living off the sea when they once lived off the forest, hence their name, the ‘Sea Veddahs’.  He talks about the loss of the native language of the community of Sri Lanka's indigenous inhabitants or Wanniyala-a-Aetto literally 'forest-dwellers' as they call themselves.