By CHUSA SICHONE –
PRESIDENT Edgar Lungu has urged Zambians to show compassion and love to the vulnerable in society.
President Lungu said this when he visited Kasisi orphanage in Chongwe yesterday, emphasising that love was meaningless until it was given away.

• PRESIDENT Edgar Lungu (right) checks on children when he visited Kasisi Orphanage in Lusaka on Saturday. Picture By SALIM HENRY/STATE HOUSE

“Love is not love until you give it away and when you give away, more will come your way,” he said.
“I think above all, the statement out there is that please find time for the vulnerable people such as these little ones (at Kasisi Orphanage) and come and see how you can just be with them, if you can’t give them anything, just visit and chat with them,” President Lungu said.
President Lungu said his visit to Kasisi Orphanage had enabled him appreciate the challenges the institution was facing but also the love that the orphanage had been according to the vulnerable children for many years.
President Lungu pledged Government’s support to the orphanage because he was impressed with the manner Kasisi Orphanage was looking after the children.
“But I think overall we are impressed since the children look very healthy, well fed and well-mannered. This is the kind of child upbringing we anticipate in homes.
“Some of us would say lucky are these children who find themselves here where there is motherly love,” he said.
He was thankful to Kasisi Orphanage and asked God to bless the institution for taking good care of the children, as such kind of love did not exist in certain households.
The Head of State also urged children at the orphanage to work hard as the future awaited them and that they could be whatever they wanted to become in life if they believed in God and themselves.
He also asked the children to pray for their leaders since God also answers prayers from children.
President Lungu, who was in a very jovial mood, took time to sing with the children, greet them, lift some of them as well as to ask others what they wanted to become once they grew up.
President Lungu also bought a painting for Justice Minister Ngosa Simbyakula worth K500 done by one of the Kasisi orphanage children as well as some Tonga music compact discs for himself and Home Affairs Minister Davies Mwila besides singing some lines from some of the songs.
After completing his tour, he stopped over at the junction leading to Kasisi orphanage where he mingled with traders, mostly women and children, whom he gave more than K1,500 cash for them to share, much to their excitement.
Kasisi orphanage sister-in-charge Mariola Mierzejewska thanked President Lungu for taking time off his busy schedule to visit the orphanage to familiarise himself with the living conditions.
She said she was grateful for that demonstration of love and presented him with a picture painted by one of the children.
Dr Simbyakula, Mr Mwila and the President’s Special Assistant for Press and Public Relations Amos Chanda, were among the people that had accompanied Mr Lungu.