I don't know that auto emailing is necessary. I tend to agree with you in the fact that the person who actually needs the help should initiate the email to the person. Something you may want to provide the option to provide contact information other then email (IM mostly). I would prefer to get an IM then an email most of the time.
Thanks, I like that idea - I'll add it to my list of things to do :)
At the moment it doesn't email people when a match has been made - my thinking behind that was the person who requests the help would most likely already email their new match to ask for help - if you guys think it would make more sense for the app to email to introduce, then I could look at including that too. Thanks again for all your comments! :D