Eleven years old, and burdened with a congenital heart ailment that has forced him to spend much of his life in hospitals around the world, Sasha Karelin has founded a Children's United Nations to spread peace, fight evil, and protect children's rights everywhere.


On Thursday, after more than a year of planning and fundraising, he submitted his program to the Justice Ministry for registration as an official organization.


"I want children who are suffering to know that there is an organization that can help them, which only children are members of and which is specifically for children," he said.


Prompted by the maltreatment of fellow patients that he witnessed in hospitals, and by videotapes of atrocities in Somalia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sasha's campaign for unprotected children began as an attempt to make adults everywhere respect the rights of children.


With the help of his parents and a board of adult advisors and sponsors, he has formed an organization of 27 members from Russia, Georgia, Moldova and Armenia and is still seeking other children from beyond the CIS.


Their aim, as stated in their program, is to make the Children's United Nations "the workshop of peace and the center of cooperation for children of all nations who are concerned about the fates of unfairly treated children."


A modern version of the Komsomol or the Young Pioneers? Sasha scoffs at the mere mention.


"Those are organizations where adults tell children what to do, and with us it's the other way round," he said.


The Children's United Nations wants to form a committee that monitors the treatment of children in hospitals and protests against maltreatment. Sasha recalled a 4-year-old girl in a Moscow hospital who asked a nurse to tell her a bed-time story. The nurse kicked her and knocked her over.


The organization's plans also include creation of a children's advocacy group to negotiate with adult leaders, a children's newspaper and a television program dealing with the abuse of children's rights.


While Sasha's parents, together with organizations including the Moscow International Foundation for UNESCO Support, have close ties to the Children's United Nations, Sasha is careful to make sure that they act as advisors only.


"Children tell their peers more than they tell adults," he said. "Adults often come and pat a child on the head and say that everything will be all right, but that doesn't help. They say they'll do things for children but they don't ask the children themselves."


Perhaps even more importantly, Sasha said, adults sometimes not only fail to help children, but fail to see the wrongs that are being done to them.


"You can't hide things from children," he said. "Adults don't see these things so much. They have their own world and they don't think about them and they don't have as much warmth."


While his long, curly blond hair and sharp features give him the appearance of an astute cherub, Sasha has nevertheless acquired discernment and cynicism beyond his years.


"The hardest thing is finding people who actually want to help us and not just promote themselves," he said.


While Sasha wants the Children's United Nations to become part of its adult namesake by next year, he refuses to let New York dictate his activities. "Not all of our kids approve of everything they do," he said, referring to UN troop deployments in Bosnia. "All problems can only be solved by peaceful means."