Photographer who won US$200,000 prize tells the story of his award-winning shot of a family coming together at a time of crisis

It was taken in the aftermath of the fire, very early in the morning, using a drone. The fire had stopped smoking because the fire service had got the fire under control, and I went there to document how the situation was looking at that time, for the people who had lost their shelter.

Many drones were flying in this area that morning, capturing what had happened, and I found a lot of frames like this – families sleeping under the open sky because they would feel even more insecure to leave the area they live in.

Everything these five people have is within this square. You're looking at their necessary items for daily life – everything else has been burned by the fire.

Korail is a big slum, and this where I took the photo is just a portion of it. Almost 1,500 families lost their shelter because of this fire.

Bangladesh is a densely populated country but in my personal opinion the people of our country are very courageous.

You know the legend of the phoenix, the bird which burns and regenerates from its own ashes… when I first looked at this photo, I thought that the family will survive.

Everything they have was burned, but from this point they will be OK, because they have courage.

I wanted to show people around the world the mental strength of the family. They have lost everything, but they haven't lost their hope – tomorrow never dies.

When I saw that HIPA's theme for this year was 'Family' I wanted to correlate the photo with that.

It's not just about a place, it's also the story of bonding: everything can be destroyed but the bonds of family can not be destroyed, especially in my country – family bonding is something special and different.

Korail is next to Mohakhali in Dhaka and is a very crowded area – every year there are several fires there and the residents are used to it.

After the burning stops, they stay living there. They lose their shelter for a time, then after some days things will be rearranged.

I have captured many photos previously about the aftermath of fires; it's like a series I do every year.

I'm not a professional photographer, I'm a banker with a passion for photography. In 2012 I took a loan from my bank, bought a Canon EOS 600D and started taking photographs at weekends, especially on Fridays and Saturdays.

Day by day, my hobby turned into a passion. I have too many hours in my [day to day] life and not enough in my photography life, but winning awards gives me inspiration.

Last month I was in Italy for the Siena Awards Photo Festival – I won the People category in the Creative Photo Awards [with a picture of a jute worker in Bangladesh titled 'The Golden Burden'].

Definitely, because it is the dream of every photographer – one day he or she will win a HIPA award.

I'm the first Grand Prize winner from Bangladesh, so this award isn’t just for me, it’s a win for the country of Bangladesh.

My dream is to do something for children in Bangladesh, for the development of photography.

Children nowadays are very much attached to their gadgets, to their devices, so if I can make a contribution to build a school or provide some workshops for children to learn about photography, that is my dream.

Experienced photographers do coaching for new photographers on YouTube, but nobody's thinking about the next generation.

I want to encourage children to love photography, to try capturing what they see of their surroundings, because time flies – if we don't have memories of our childhoods, then those times will be lost to us.

This is something I wanted to do before winning a HIPA prize, and I think the Grand Prize will make it possible.