AT first glance, 17-year-old Joseph could be a typical teenager. Hanging around the local market with his friends, the young man fits the stereotypical image of carefree youth.

Yet Joseph's life is far from ordinary. The tough streets of Kampala, the capital of Uganda, have been his classroom and playground since he was orphaned at the age of 14. When not socialising with his friends, he scrapes together a meagre existence begging for food. And when his friends return to safe and loving homes at the end of the day, Joseph must sleep rough under whatever shelter he can find. His daily routine, although simple on the surface, hides an even simpler truth - he could be murdered at any moment simply for being a vagrant. His one constant companion is danger.

Joseph's harrowing existence is now the focus of Bermudian film maker Charles Reilly, who spent two weeks in central Africa last month.

The trip was scheduled to enable Mr. Reilly to shoot some promotional footage for two island charities that provide aid in Uganda - the ISIS Foundation, which runs a hospital in Kampala, and Restorers of Hope, which cares for orphans of Aids victims.

Technical problems forced Mr. Reilly to abandon filming the charity projects - but his time wasn't wasted. After spotting Joseph begging in the busy markets of capital, the film maker approached the young man and discussed the idea of making a film about his daily struggles.

"I singled him out because I realised that he had obviously fallen through some cracks but, to all intents and purposes he looked like he could be at home in Bermuda," Mr. Reilly said.

"His father died when he was two and his mother died of malaria when he was 14. So he's a kid who did have a home and was getting an education, but as soon as his parents died, he was out on the street."

Uganda has had a chequered history since gaining independence from Britain 45 years ago. Tribal king Edward Muteesa II was elected President in 1962 but was deposed just four years later. What followed was 20 years of coups and counter-coups - including the infamous ten-year reign of dictator Idi Amin during which 300,000 Ugandans were murdered.

Although the current President, Yoweri Museveni, has brought a degree of political stability to Uganda - he has been in office for more than 20 years - the landlocked country still faces severe problems, including widespread poverty and a massive Aids epidemic. Tens of thousands of civilians have also been killed in a civil war fought between Government and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army, based in the north of the territory. Although a truce was agreed last year, LRA leaders are now facing International Criminal Court indictments for crimes such as killing civilians and abducting children to use as fighters and sex slaves.

"The problem with Uganda is you have turmoil - and turmoil in the countries surrounding Uganda such as Rwanda, Congo and Sudan," Mr. Reilly said.

"The north of the country is in chaos . They call it a civil war but in my opinion it's basically mafia control. You have the Lord's Resistance Army that controls the north and they commit some absolutely appalling atrocities. For example, the LRA came into one school, forced the kids to kill one of the students, then cook him and eat him.

"A lot of people from the north are getting out of there and heading south to Kampala. The problem is, there's no social system set up for them. They're homeless, they're orphans and it also doesn't help that Uganda has a huge AIDS problem."

Joseph's struggle is illustrative of what many Ugandans are going through on a daily basis

"This guy is in the world's worst position because he's 17 years old which means he's too old for an orphanage," Mr. Reilly said.

"But because he has nothing, he can't get a job. They have some really strange rules out there such as, you can't go to school if you don't have any shoes. It doesn't help that street kids in Kampala are considered cockroaches - it's not unusual for them to get attacked or even killed. This can be from either local people or even the police.

"Joseph lives an appalling life. In the four or five days that I filmed him he was threatened with death twice. Actually he didn't have a problem with me filming him because, in a way, I was his bodyguard. But I have to ask myself the question - what happens to him now that I'm not around?

" A typical day for this guy is to go down to the canal for a wash in the morning and then basically he hangs around the market looking for food and begging for money. He does have friends who are not on the street and who have parents, so he hangs out with them. But at night he literally has to go and find a tree to sleep under. It sounds so simple, just hanging around the market, but he is also facing a constant battle of having his life in danger. These kids have to find safe havens where they can sleep because basically, if Joseph slept in the wrong place, he'd get shot. And it's not so much criminals who he has to fear. He'd most likely shot by police or just an ordinary citizen who's annoyed - if you're on a local businessman's property he just might shoot you.

"It's kind of a surreal world. Life is regarded very cheaply. You walk down the street and you can see people sitting on the side of the street dying of AIDS or starvation and things like that. Yes, life is cheap."

As a foreigner Mr. Reilly felt generally safe walking the streets of Kampala. But his work with Joseph did force him into a number of dangerous confrontations.

"We were filming at this canal where Joseph bathes," he recalled.

"It was the only day that I didn't take my translator with me and what I didn't know - and what Joseph didn't tell me - was that the canal was operated by a drugs gang. Anyone who went down to the canal to wash or whatever had to pay to use it. So I'm sitting there with my video camera and these two guys came out and they were straight across to me and started blabbing away in Lugandan. I figured it was a dangerous situation but I also knew that if I tried to run away from it it would end up being worse than it was.

"So I started speaking some Lugandan that I knew to these guys and I think it took them back. By this time a crowd of people had formed and that was my saviour. They have this thing in Uganda where, if you rob somebody in Uganda, people around will actually grab that person. The person who's committed the robbery better hope that the police arrive soon because they will kill you on the spot.

"We look at that and say how backwards it is but what you have to realise is this is a place where people have nothing. So if you take something away from them, you're taking away everything. Their reaction is quite understandable, it's a basic survival instinct and it actually guaranteed me safe passage."

For Mr. Reilly, that one incident summed up two common components of life in Uganda - corruption and violence.

"The first thing that hits you when yo get into Kampala is the amount of guns," he said.

"I have never seen so many weapons. Every business has a small army of guys for guns and the hotel checks your car for bombs. Walking into a hotel you have to go through the whole airport security scenario.

"I was talking to the head security guard one day and asked him what the story was behind the metal detectors at the hotel doors and he told me that sometimes people bring hand grenades into the bar.

"But what I found really scary was the amount of corruption at Government level. The hotel I stayed in was used a lot by Government for things like conferences. The only time I saw obesity in Uganda was in Government officials. That says it all. I was sitting in the hotel and actually got angry - how can you walk into this hotel, have all these meals, yet two minutes around the corner there are people dying in the streets. How can you do that in good conscience? And the answer is they don't have a good conscience."

Perhaps not surprisingly Joseph's story is not unique. Many of the refugees fleeing the north find themselves in a similar position.

"There were quite a few kids on the streets, which is terribly sad," Mr. Reilly said.

"Recently the police were given orders to clean up the streets because there was a Commonwealth meeting in Kampala. Their idea of 'cleaning up the streets' is to shoot a couple of beggars and street kids. So even though I saw a lot of street kids, it wasn't as bad compared to what it's normally like.

"What's fortunate for Joseph is he speaks both Lugandan and English. English is the main language but in Kampala it's Lugandan. So if you're from a war-torn part of the north and escape to Kampala, you're screwed because if you don't know Lugandan you're not going to be able to communicate.

"Uganda is a bit of a bully. It has the strongest army in central Africa and they've had incursions into places like Tanzania. If they call the army into a place you had better make sure you leave because these guys are - well, using the word 'vicious' is an understatement. If there's a riot and they call in the army, it's not a case of holding up speaker phones and telling people to go back home. The first thing these guys do is pull out machine guns and start shooting. They're wicked.

Despite the hardships, there were aspects of the country and its people that Mr. Reilly fell in love with. "It's horrific from the poverty aspect but what really amazed me was the friendliness," he said.

"I was told that it would be difficult to make a film because a lot of people out there who believe that if you take a photograph of them you take away a part of their soul. But I had the reverse problem. Every time I pulled out the video camera I had to tell people to get out of the shot. The young kids love cameras. Even just being a white person walking down the street there's this fascination because there really aren't that many white people there.

"This is a country where people have every reason to be mad and hateful and yet they are so friendly and so trusting. That blew me away. Funnily enough I actually felt safer in Uganda than I did in South Africa. One of the differences is South Africa has had years of apartheid and so you can understand the anger towards each other. Uganda doesn't have the same history and so white people coming in are seen as people who are bringing - they're good people. As a result, Ugandans want to come over and talk and welcome you all that stuff.

"I'll give you an example. I was having problems with money because they wouldn't accept my Mastercard down there. I said to my guide I may have to wire you money when I get home. To us that sounds a simple transaction but I owed him like $200 and the average salary is perhaps $300 a year so $200 is a lot of money. And he said 'Okay , no problem' and he trusted me. Fortunately my money came through before I left so I was able to pay him back, I was so amazed that he would be so nice to do that. Would that have been the case in Bermuda?"

Mr. Reilly is currently editing his documentary film - which has the working title Walking with Joseph, and hopes it will be selected to premiere at next year's Bermuda Film Festival. If so, one special guest at the opening could be the star of the film.

"I would really like to bring Joseph out to the festival and perhaps take him around the schools so that Bermudian kids can get an understanding of what life outside this paradise is like," Mr. Reilly said.

"In fact I really think they should scrap the Regiment and instead have a Peace Corps unit which could take young Bermudian women and men to places like Uganda for three months and have them doing positive things with the local people.

"in the meantime, I'm keeping in touch with Joseph and really want to get him off the street. To do that it's going to cost about $700 a year - that will get him an apartment, get him food, get him clothed and get him into school.

"He definitely reaffirmed the fact that Bermuda is so lucky and the people who complain about things in this country, if they were to sit back and look, they really don't have anything to complain about at all."

All funds raised from Mr. Reilly's film will be donated to the ISIS Foundation and Restorers of Hope. For further information Mr. Reilly can be contacted on 238 4580 or getme transact.bm